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DICTIONARY 

OF 

NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY 

BAKER BEADON 




w 

DICTIONARY 



OF 



NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY 



EDITED BY 



LESLIE STEPHEN 



VOL. III. 
BAKER- -BEADON 



MACMILLAN AND CO. 

LONDON : SMITH, ELDER, CO, 
1885 



,* 



LIST OF WRITERS 



IN THE THIKD VOLUME. 



S. 0. ADDY. 

GEORGE AITCHISON, A.R.A. 

K. E. ANDERSON. 

SIR ALEXANDER JOHN ARBUTHNOT, 

K.C.S.I. 

T. A. A. . . T. A. ARCHER. 
P. 13. A. . . P. BRTJCE AUSTIN. 
W. E. A. A. W. E. A. AXON. 
G. F. E. B. G. F. RUSSELL BARKER. 

R. B THE REV. RONALD BAYNE. 

A. H. B-Y. A. H. BEESLY. 

G. V. B. . . G. VERE BENSON. 

G. T. B. . . G. T. BETTANY. 

W. G. B. . THE REV. PROFESSOR BLAIKIE, D.D. 

A. 8. B. . . LlEUTENANT-COLONEL BoLTON. 

.1. B JAMES BRITTEN. 

A. A. B. . . A. A. BRODRIBB. 

O. B OSCAR BROWNING. 

A. R. B. . . THE REV. A. R. BUCKLAND. 

A. H. B. . A. H. BULLEN. 

G. W. B. . G. W. BURNETT. 

H. M. C. . H. MANNERS CHICHESTER. 

A. M. C. . Miss A. M. CLERKE. 

J. W. C. . . J. W. CLERKE. 

T. C THOMPSON COOPER, F.S.A. 

C. H. C. . . C. H. COOTE. 
J. S. C. . . J. S. COTTON. 
W. P. C. . W. P. COURTNEY. 



C. C CHARLES CREIGHTON, M.D. 

M. C THE REV. PROFESSOR CREIGHTON. 

C. E. I). . . C. E. DAWKINS. 

T. F. T. D. TE REV. T. F. THISELTON DYER. 

F. Y. E. . . F. Y. EDGEWORTH. 

F. E FRANCIS ESPINASSE. 

C. H. F. . . C. H. FIRTH. 

M. F PROFESSOR MICHAEL FOSTER. 

J. G JAMES GAIRDNER. 

R. G RICHARD GARNETT, LL.D. 

J. T. G. . . J. T. GILBERT, F.S.A. 
A. G-N. . . ALFRED GOODWIN. 

G. G GORDON GOODWIN. 

A. G THE REV. ALEXANDER GORDON. 

E. G EDMUND GOSSE. 

A. H. G. . . A. H. GRANT. 
R. E. G. . . R. E. GRAVES. 

A. B. G. . . THE REV. A. B. GROSART, LL.D. 
J. A. H. . . J. A. HAMILTON. 

R. H ROBERT HARRISON. 

W. J. H. . PROFESSOR W. JEROME HARRISON. 
T. F. H. . . T. F. HENDERSON. 

J. H Miss JENNETT HUMPHREYS. 

W. H. ... THE REV. WILLIAM HUNT. 
E. I Miss INGALL. 

B. D. J. . . B. D. JACKSON. 

A. J THE REV. AUGUSTUS JESSOPP, D.D. 

C. F. K. . . C. F. KEARY. 



VI 

T. K. K. . 
C. K 
.]. K 

.). K. I, . 
H. v. L. . 
S.L. L. . 
<;. i>. If., 
.K. .M. . . 

J.A. K. 

C. T. M. . 

.1.31 
C. .M 
N. M 
J.B.M. . 

.1. II. <. . 
.1. F. I'. . 
K. L. I'. . 
S. L.-P. . 
E. R. . 



List of Writers. 



T. I-]. Kr.i:i:K.r.. 
. CIIAIM.IS KKVT, 

.IciMvl'K KMlillT. 

.1. K. LAI'tiHTON. 

. I h:\IUVAxLAUN. 

. S.L. I 

. JKsvjLB MACKAY, LL.D. 
i. J. A. FULLER MAITLAND. 
. C, TKICE MARTIN. 
. JAMES MEW. 
. \V. COSMO MONKHOUSE. 
. NORMAN MOORE, M.I). 
. J. BASS MULLINGER. 
. THE REV. CANON OVKRTON. 
. J. F. PAYNE, M.D. 
. K. L. POOLE. 
. STANLEY LANE-POOLE. 
. ERNEST RADFORD. 



J. M. E. . . J. M. RIGG. 

J. H. R. . . J. H. ROUND. 

J. M. S. . . J. M. SCOTT. 

T. S THOMAS SINCLAIR. 

G-. B. S. . . Cf. BARNETT SMITH. 

W. B. S. . . W. BARCLAY SQUIRE. 

L. S LESLIE STEPHEN. 

H. M. S. . . H. M. STEPHENS. 

C. W. S. . . C. W. SUTTON. 

H. R. T. . . H. R. TEDDER. 
i R. E. T. . . R. E. THOMPSON, M.D. 
| H. A. T. . . H. A. TIPPING. 

T. F. T. . . PROFESSOR T. F. TOUT. 
j W. H. T. . W. H. TREGELLAS. 

i E. V THE REV. CANON VENABLES. 

1 C. W CORNELIUS WALFORD, F.S.A. 

A. W. W. . PROFESSOR A. W. WARD, LL.D. 

M. G. W. . THE REV. M. G. WATKIKS. 

F. W FREDERICK WEDMORE. 



DICTIONARY 



OF 



NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY 



Baker 



Baker 



BAKER, ALEXANDER (1582-1638), 
Jesuit, was born in Norfolk in 1582, entered 
the Society of Jesus about 1610, was pro- 
fessed of the four vows in 1627, twice visited 
India as a missionary, and died on 24 Aug. 
1638 in London, where he had resided for 
many years. He reconciled the Rev. Wil- 
liam Coke, a son of Sir Edward Coke, the 
famous lawyer, to the catholic church in 
1615. Among the ' State Papers ' (Domestic, 
James I, vol. clxxxix. No. 25, under date 1625) 
is a manuscript by Father Baker in defence 
of the doctrine of regeneration by baptism as 
held by catholics, showing its difference from 
the opinion of protest ants. 

[Oliver's Jesuits, 48; Dodd's Church Hist. 
iii. loo ; Foley's Records, i. 153, vii. 28 ; Rymer's 
Foedera, xviii. 392 ; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 
James I (1623-25), 520.] T. C. 

BAKER, ANNE ELIZABETH (1786- 
1861), philologist, was born 16 June 1786. 
She was the sister of George Baker, the his- 
torian of Northamptonshire [q. v.], and to her 
his great work owes its geology and botany. 
MissBakerwas the companion of her brother's 
journeys, his amanuensis, and his fellow- 
labourer, especially in the natural history, 
and she made drawings and even engraved 
some of the plates for his great work. To 
the opportunities afforded her when she rode 
through the county by her brother's side we 
are indebted for the ' Glossary of Northamp- 
tonshire Words and Phrases, to which are 
added the customs of the county,' 2 vols., 
London, 1854, 8vo, one of the best of our 
local lexicons. Miss Baker died at her house 
in Gold Street, Northampton, 22 April 1861. 

[Quarterly Review, ci. 6 ; Gent. Mag. ccxi. 
208 ; Addit. MSS. 24864, f. 74.] T. C. 

^ BAKER, ANSELM (1834-1885), artist, 
first acquired a knowledge of drawing and 

VOL. III. 



painting at Messrs. Hardnian's studios in Bir- 
mingham. He became a Cistercian monk at 
Mount St. Bernard's Abbey, Leicestershire, 
in 1857, and died there on 11 Feb. 1885. As 
a heraldic artist he was unequalled in this 
country, and his work was eagerly sought 
for by those who appreciated the beauty of 
mediaeval blazonry. About two-thirds of 
the coats-of-arms in Foster's ' Peerage ' were 
drawn by him, and are signed l F. A.' (Frater 
Anselm). He also executed the mural paint- 
ings in the chapel of St. Scholastica's Priory, 
Atherstone ; in St. Winifred's, Sheepshed ; in 
the Temple in Garendon Park, and in the 
Lady and Infirmary chapels at Mount St. 
Bernard's Abbey. The i Hortus Animse ' and 
1 Horse Diurnse,' published at London, and 
several beautiful works brought out at Mech- 
lin and Tournai, bear witness to his inventive 
genius. His ' Liber Vitse,' a record of the 
benefactors of St. Bernard's Abbey, is magni- 
ficently illustrated with pictures of the arms 
and patron saints of the benefactors. Ho 
also left unpublished ' The Armorial Bearings 
of English Cardinals ' and ' The Arms of the 
Cistercian Houses of England.' 

[Tablet, 21 Feb. 1885 ; Athenaeum, 21 Feb. 
1885; Academy, 21 Feb. 1885.] T. C. 

BAKER, AUGUSTINE (1575-1641), 
Benedictine. [See BAKEK, DAVID.] 

BAKER, CHARLES (1617-1679), Jesuit, 
whose real name was DAVID LEWIS, was the 
son of Morgan Lewis, master of the royal 
grammar school, Abergavenny. He was born 
in Monmouthshire in 1617, and studied in his 
father's school. When about nineteen years 
old he was converted to the catholic faith, and 
sent by his uncle, a priest of the Society of 
Jesus, to the English college at Rome (1638). 
He was ordained priest in 1642, entered the 



Baker 



Baker 



Society of Jesus in 1644, and became a pro- 
fessed father in 1655. The South Wales dis- 
trict, of which he was twice superior, was 
the principal field of his missionary labours. 
There he zealously toiled for twenty-eight 
years, visiting the persecuted catholics, chiefly 
by night, and always making his circuits on 
foot. A victim to the Gates plot persecu- 
tion, he was arrested 17 Nov. 1678, while 
preparing to say mass, was committed to Usk 
gaol, tried and condemned to death for the 
priesthood at the Monmouth assizes, 29 March 
1679, and executed at Usk on 27 August 
following. 

After his apprehension there appeared a 
pamphlet, by Dr. Herbert Croft, bishop of 
Hereford, entitled ' A Short Narrative of the 
Discovery of a College of Jesuits at a place 
called the Come, in the county of Hereford. 
To which is added a true relation of the 
knavery of Father Lewis, the pretended bi- 
shop of Llandaffe,' London, 1679, 4to. The 
charge brought by Dr. Croft against Baker 
was that he had extorted money from a poor 
woman under the pretence that he would 
liberate her father's soul from purgatory. Sir 
Robert Atkyns, the judge who tried Baker, 
declared that the pamphlet, which had been 
produced in court, was false and scandalous. 

[Foley's Eecords, v. 912-931, vii. 456; Chal- 
loner's Memoirs of Missionary Priests (1803), ii. 
225 ; Oliver's Collectanea S. J. 48 ; Dodd's Church 
Hist. iii. 321 ; Cat. of Printed Books in Brit. 
Mus. ; Cobbett's State Trials, vii. 250.] T. C. 

BAKER, CHARLES (1803-1874), in- 
structor of the deaf and dumb, was the 
second son of Thomas Baker, of Birming- 
ham, and was born 31 July 1803. While a 
youth he was for a short time an assistant 
at the Deaf and Dumb Institution at Edg- 
baston, near Birmingham. He then tried 
other employments, but his services were 
again sought by the committee of the insti- 
tution, when in a difficulty on the failure of 
their master, who was a Swiss, to control 
the pupils. Charles Baker had never con- 
templated teaching as a profession, but 
without much thought for the future he 
entered upon his work. He at once obtained 
the affections of the children, and, to their 
delight, he remained at the institution.' 
Three years afterwards he was invited to 
aid in the establishment at Doncaster of a 
Deaf and Dumb Institution for the county 
of York. ^ The plan had originated with the 
Rev. William Fenton, in company with whom 
he visited all the large towns of the county, 
and obtained such support as justified the 
carrying out of the scheme. The deficiency 
of class-books was an evil which Baker 



soon found to be pressing. Although the 
deaf and dumb had been gathered together 
in various institutions for forty years, no 
attempt had been made to provide such a 
course as they required. This want he set 
himself to supply. He wrote the ' Circle of 
Knowledge ' in its various gradations, con- 
secutive lessons, picture lessons, teachers' 
lessons, the ' Book of the Bible ' in its several 
gradations, and many other Avorks which 
had special relation to the teaching of the 
deaf and dumb. The ' Circle of Knowledge ' 
obtained great popularity. It was used in 
the education of the royal children, and of 
the grandchildren of Louis-Philippe. It has 
been largely used in the colonies and in 
Russia, and the first gradation has been 
translated into Chinese, and is used in the 
schools of China and Japan. Many years 
ago the publisher reported that 400,000 
copies had been sold. Baker also wrote 
for the 'Penny Cyclopaedia' various topo- 
graphical articles, and those on the ' Instruc- 
tion of the Blind,' l Dactylology,' ' Deaf and 
Dumb,' ' George Dalgarno,' and the ' Abbe 
Sicard. He contributed to the * Journal of 
Education,' to the 'Polytechnic Journal,' 
and the publications of the Central Society 
of Education, and translated Amman's ' Dis- 
sertation on Speech' (1873). He was an 
active worker in connection with the local 
institutions of Doncaster, and was a member 
ot the committee for the establishment of a 
public free library for the town. He was 
held in high regard by teachers of the deaf 
and dumb in England and in America, and in 
June 1870 the Columbian Institution of the 
Deaf and Dumb conferred on him the degree 
of doctor of philosophy, an honour which 
he appreciated, but he never assumed the 
title. He died at Doncaster 27 May 1874, 
and his old pupils erected a mural tablet to 
his memory in the institution where he had 
laboured so long. 

[Information from Sir Thomas Baker ; Ameri- 
can Annals of the Deaf and Dumb (with portrait), 
xx. 201.] ^ C. W. S. 

BAKER, DAVID, in religion AUGUS- 
TINE (1575-1641), Benedictine monk, eccle- 
siastical historian, and ascetical writer, was 
born at Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, on 
9 Dec. 1575. His father, William Baker, 
was steward to Lord Abergavenny, and his 
mother was the daughter of Lewis ap John, 
alias Wallis, vicar of Abergavenny, and sister 
of Dr. David Lewis, a judge of the admiralty. 
At the age of eleven he was sent to the 
school of Christ's Hospital, London, and in 
the beginning of 1590 he entered the uni- 
versity of Oxford as a commoner of Broad- 




Baker 



Baker 



gates Hall, now Pembroke College. Led ! professed by the Italian fathers in England 
away by sin, he gave up all practices of reli- , as a member of the Monte Cassino congre- 
gion ; ' yet there remained in him,' observes gation. Subsequently he was aggregated by 
his biographer, i a natural modesty, whereby Father Sigebert Buckley, and became a mem- 
he was restrained from, a scandalous impu- ber of the English congregation, being the 
dence in sin.' At the end of two years, be- first who was admitted after Fathers Sadler 
fore he had had time to graduate, his father and Maihew. Three separate congregations 
summoned him home, with a view of settling existed for a time, namely, the Spanish, the 
him in some profession. Whilst at Aberga- | Italian, and the renewed English congrega- 
venny he began the study of the law under 
the guidance of his elder brother Richard, a 
barrister, and after the lapse of four years he 
was sent to London, where he became a 
member first of Lincoln's Inn, and afterwards, 
in November 1596, of the Inner Temple not 
of the Middle Temple, as Wood erroneously 
states (CooKE, Students admitted to the Inner 
Temple, 146). 

His father made him recorder of Aberga- 
venny. An escape whilst riding through a 
dangerous ford on one of his business jour- 
neys was ascribed by him to providential 



interference, and led to his taking a serious 
interest in religion and ultimately becoming 
a catholic. 

Having been formally reconciled to the 
catholic church by the Rev. Richard Floyd 
the elder, he came to London, where he 
formed an acquaintance with some Italian 
Benedictine monks of the congregation of 
Monte Cassino. At their instance he pro- 
ceeded in 1605 to the Benedictine monastery 
of St. Justina in Padua, and commenced his 
novitiate on 27 May, when he assumed 
the name of Augustine. Ill-health made it 
necessary for him to return home, but after 
the death of his father, whom he converted 
to Catholicism, he went back to his convent. 

At this period there still survived in Eng- 
land one representative of the old Benedictine 
congregation in the person of Dom Robert 
(Sigebert) Buckley, who had endured an 
imprisonment of forty-four years for refusing 
the oath of supremacy. On 21 Nov. 1607 



tion. A union amongst them was felt to be 
most desirable, and after many difficulties 
and obstacles was secured by the brief l Ex 
incumbenti ' of Pope Paul V in 1619. After 
the foundation of the first houses, when each 
member was ordered to select one as his 
convent, Baker chose St. Laurence's at Dieu- 
lewart in Lorraine, though it does not appear 
that he ever resided within its walls. 

After his return to England Baker had 
been for a time companion to a young noble- 
man probably Lord Burghersh, the Earl of 
Westmorland's son who had lately been 
converted, and who expressed a great desire 
to dedicate himself to a retired spiritual life. 
Baker afterwards resided in the house of Sir 
Nicholas Fortescue, where he led a life of 
almost total seclusion. Next he went to 
Rheims, and was ordained priest. In 1620 
he was engaged as chaplain in the house of 
Mr. Philip Fursden of Fursden in the parish of 
Cadbury, Devonshire. Subsequently he re- 
moved to London. 

In July 1624 he took up his residence 
with English Benedictine nuns at Cainbrai 
as their spiritual director. During his nine 
years' residence there he drew up many of 
his ascetical treatises. In a letter, hitherto 
unpublished, addressed to Sir Robert Cotton 
from Cambrai, 3 June 1629, Father Baker 
gives the following interesting account of 
the convent to which he was attached : l Ever 
since my being with you I have lived in a 
cittie in thes fore in partes, called Cambraie, 
assisting a convent of certein religious English 



two priests, named Sadler and Maihew, were women of the order of St. Benet newlie 



brought to his prison at the Gatehouse in 
London. He assisted in ' clothing ' them 
with his own hands, and on their profession 



erected. They are in number as yet but 29. 
They are inclosed and never seen by us nor 
by anni other unlesse it be rarelie uppon an 



they were admitted, as monks of West- extraordinarie occasion, but uppon no occa- 
minster, to all the rights and privileges of sion maie they go furth, nor maie anie man 
that abbey, and of the old English Bene- or woman gette in unto them. Yet I have 
dictine congregation. Father Cressy is evi- j my diet from them and uppon occasions 
dently wrong, however, in his statement, ! conferre with them, but see not one another ; 
which has been generally accepted, that j an live in a house adioning to them. Their 
Baker was the chief instrument in effecting ! lives being contemplative the comon bookes 
this restoration, whereby, in the language of of the worlde are not for their purpose, and 
Dodd (Church History, iii. 116), 'the link of i litle or nothing is in thes daies printed in 
succession was pieced up, and the Bene- | English that is proper for them. There were 
dictines put in the way of claiming the ' manie good English bookes in olde time 
rights formerly belonging to that order in i whereof thoughe they have some, yet they 
England.' The truth is that Baker had been \ want manie, and thereuppon I am in their 

B2 



Baker 



Baker 



beliallf become an humble suitor unto you, 
to bestowe on them such bookes as you please, 
either manuscript or printed, being in Eng- 
lish, conteining contemplation, Saints lives, 
or other devotions. Ilampooles workes are 
proper for them. I wish I had Ililltons scala 
perfectionis in latt-in ; it would helpe the 
understanding of the English (and some of i 
them understande late in). The favour you \ 
shall do them herein, will be li;.d in memorie ' 
both towardeyou and your post eritie, whereof j 
it maie please god to sende some hether to be ; 
of the number, as there is allreadie one of 
the name, if not of your kindred. This bearer 
will convey hether such bookes as it shall j 
please you to single out and deliver to him ' 
(MS. Cotton. Jul. C.iii. f. 12). 

In 1633 Baker removed to Douay, and 
became a conventual at St. Gregory's. From 
thence he was sent on the English mission, 
where his time was divided between Bed- , 
fordshire and London. He appears to have j 
been chaplain to Mrs. Watson, mother of 
one of the first nine novices of the convent 
of Cambrai. Eventually he settled in Hoi- 
born, where he carried on his meditation, 
solitude, mental prayer, and exercises of an 
internal life to the last. He died in Gray's 
Inn Lane on 9 Aug. 1641, after four days' 
illness, of an infectious disorder closely re- 
sembling the plague. 

Dr. Oliver truly observes that 'Father ' 
Baker shone pre-eminently as a master of the j 
spiritual life : he was the' hidden man of the j 
heart absorbed in heavenly contemplation.' '. 
Nine folio volumes of ascetical treatises by j 
him w r ere formerly kept in the convent at i 
Cambrai, but unfortunately many of these \ 
manuscripts perished at the seizure of that \ 
religious house. Wood, Dodd, and Sweeney i 
give the titles of thirty writings by Baker on ' 
spiritual subjects that are still extant. From j 
Baker's manuscripts Father Serenus Cressy j 
compiled the work entitled ' Sancta Sophia. 
Or Directions for the Prayer of Contempla- 
tion, &c. Extracted out of more than XL. 
Treatises written by the late Ven. Father F. 
Augustin Baker, A Mouke of the English 
Congregation of the Holy Order of St. Bene- 
dict : And Methodically digested by the JR. F. j 
Serenus Cressy, of the same Order and 
Congregation, and printed at the Charges of 
his Convent of S. Gregories inDoway,'2 vols., 
Douay, 1657, 8vo, with a fine engraved por- 
trait of Baker, in his monk's habit, prefixed. 
A new edition, by the Very Rev. Dom Nor- 
bert Sweeney, D.D., was published at London i 
in 1876. In 1657 there was also published 
another work by Baker, entitled ' The Holy ' 
Practises of a Devine Lover or the Sainctly 
IdeotsDeuotions. The Contents of the booke 



are contained in the ensuinge page,' Paris, 
1657, 12mo. The contents are: '(i) The 
Summarie of Perfection ; (ii) The Direc- 
tions : for these Holy Exercises and Ideots 
Deuotions; (iii) A Catalogue of such Bookes 
as are fitt for Contemplatiue Spirits ; (iv) The 
Holy Exercises and Ideots Deuotions ; (v) The 
Toppe of the Heauenlie ladder, or the Highest 
steppe of Prayer and Perfection, by the Ex- 
ample of a Pilgrime goinge to lerusalem.' 
Some religious tracts by Baker are preserved 
in the British Museum (Add. MS. 11510). 
Baker is sometimes considered to give coun- 
tenance to the errors of the Quietists, but 
orthodox Roman catholic writers hold that 
he is perfectly free from all taint of false 
doctrine. Moreover, his doctrine was ap- 
proved in a general assembly of the English 
Benedictine monks in 1633. Objections were 
taken by Father Francis Hull to his conduct 
as spiritual director of the nunnery at Cam- 
brai ; and Father Baker wrote a vindication 
of his conduct, now preserved among the 
Rawlinson MSS. in the Bodleian (C 460). 
In the same collection (A 36) is a packet ot 
letters, chiefly dated 3 March 1655, from 
nuns at Cambrai, complaining of proceedings 
on the part of Claude White, president of the 
English Benedictine congregation, to com- 
pel them to give up certain books of Father 
Baker's charged with containing poisonous 
and diabolical doctrine. 

Although a large portion of his life was 
occupied in mental prayer and meditation, 
Baker was a diligent student of ecclesiasti- 
cal history and antiquities. Some persons 
having contended that the ancient Benedic- 
tine congregation in England was dependent 
on that of Cluni in the diocese of Macon, 
founded about the year 910, Father Baker, 
at the wish of his superiors, devoted much 
time to refute this error. For this purpose 
he inspected very carefully the monuments 
and evidences in public and private collec- 
tions in London and elsewhere. He had the 
benefit of the opinions of Sir Robert Cotton, 
John Selden, Sir Henry Spelman, and William 
Camden, and the result of his researches is 
embodied in the learned folio volume, entitled 
'Apostolatus Benedictinorum in Anglia, 
sive Disceptatio Historica de Antiquitate 
Ordinis,' published by order of the general 
congregation holden 'in 1625, and printed at 
Douay in 1626. His friend, Father John 
Jones, D.D., reduced the mass of materials 
into respectable Latinity, and they left 
Father Clement Reyner, their assistant, an 
excellent scholar, to edit the work, so that 
it passes for being finished ' opera et indus- 
tria R. P. dementis Reyneri.' 

Baker's six folio volumes of collections for 



Baker 



Baker 



Ecclesiastical History were long supposed 
to have been irrecoverably lost. However, 
four of them are now existing in the archives 
of Jesus College, Oxford. Many of the docu- 
ments are published inReyner. These volumes 
were written some thirty years before Dods- 
worth and Dugdale published their collec- 
tions. Two treatises by Baker on the Laws 
of England were lost in the Revolution of 
1688, when the catholic chapels were pil- 
laged. 

[Life and Spirit of Father Baker, by James 
NorLert Sweeney, D.D., London, 1861 ;" Wood's 
Athenae Oxon, ed. Bliss, iii. 7 ; The Rambler, 
March 1851, p. 214; Oliver's Catholic History 
of Cornwall, &c., 236, 502 ; Dodd's Church 
Hist. iii. 115; Cotton MS. Jul. C. iii. f. 12; 
Addit. MS. 11510; Weldon's Chronological 
Notes; Evans's Portraits, 12348, 12349 ; Brom- 
ley's Cat. of Engr. Portraits ; Dublin Review, 
n. s. xxvii. 337 ; Macray's Cat. of Rawlinson 
MSS.; Coxe's Cat. Codd. MSS. Collegii Jesu, 
Oxon. 25-30.] T. C. 

BAKER, DAVID BRISTOW (1803- 
1852), religious writer, born in 1803, was 
educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, 
where he graduated B.A. in 1829, and M.A. 
in 1832. He was for many years incumbent 
of Claygate, Surrey. In 1831 he published 
' A Treatise of the Nature of Doubt ... in 
Religious Questions/ and in 1832 'Discourses 
and Sacramental Addresses to a Village Con- 
gregation.' He died in 1852. 

[Gent. Mag. vol. xxxviii. new series ; Brit. 
Mus. Cat.] ' A. H. B. 

BAKER, DAVID ERSKINE (1730- 
1767), writer on the drama, a son of Henry 
Baker, F.R.S. [q. v.], by his wife, the young- 
est daughter of Daniel Defoe, was born in 
London, in the parish of St. Dunstan-in- 
the-West, on 30 Jan. 1730, and named after 
his godfather, the Earl of Buchan. As he 
showed early a taste for mathematics, the 
Duke of Montague, master of the ordnance, 
placed him in the drawing room of the Tower, 
to qualify him for the duties of a royal engi- 
neer. It appears from one of his father's let- 
ters in 1747 to Dr. Doddridge that the boy 
was unremitting in his studies. ' At twelve 
years old,' says his father, ' he had translated 
the whole twenty-four books of "Telemachus" 
from the French; before he was fifteen he 
translated from the Italian, and published, a 
treatise on physic of Dr. Cocchi of Florence 
concerning the diet and doctrines of Pytha- 
goras, and last year, before he was seventeen, 
he likewise published a treatise of Sir Isaac 
Newton's " Metaphysics " compared with 
those of Dr. Leibnitz, from the French of 



M. Voltaire. He is a pretty good master of the 
Latin and understands some Greek, is reck- 
oned no bad arithmetician for his years, and 
knows a great deal of natural history, both 
from reading and observation, so that by the 
grace of God I hope he will become a virtu- 
ous and useful man.' Communications from 
David Erskine Baker were printed in the 
1 Transactions of the Royal Society,' xliii. 540, 
xliv. 529, xlv. 598, xlvi. 467, xlviii. 564. But 
the father's hopes of a scientific career for his 
son were not to be fulfilled. Having married 
the daughter of a Mr. Clendon, a clerical em- 
piric, the young man joined a company of 
strolling actors. In 1764 he published his 
useful and fairly accurate ' Companion to the 
Play House,' in two duodecimo volumes. A 
revised edition, under the title of ' Biographia 
Dramatica,' appeared in 1782, edited by Isaac 
Reed. In the second edition Baker's name 
is given among the list of dramatic authors, 
and we are told that ' being adopted by an 
uncle, who was a silk throwster in Spital 
Fields, he succeeded him in his business ; but 
wanting the prudence and attention which 
are necessary to secure success in trade he 
soon failed.' Stephen Jones, the editor of the 
third edition (1812), says that he died in ob- 
scurity at Edinburgh about 1770. In ' Notes 
and Queries,' 2nd ser. xii. 129, he is stated to 
have died about 1780, and the authority given 
is Harding's l Biographical Mirror ; ' but in 
that book there is no mention at all of Baker. 
Nichols (Literary Anecdotes, v. 277) fixes 
16 Feb. 1767 as the date of his death. 

In compiling his l Companion to the Play 
House ' Baker was largely indebted to his 
predecessor Langbaine. He adds but little 
information concerning the early dramatists, 
but his work is a useful book of reference for 
the history of the stage during the first half 
of the eighteenth century. He is the author 
of a small dramatic piece, ' The Muse of Os- 
sian,' 1763, and from the Italian he translated 
a comedy in two acts, ( The Maid the Mis- 
tress' (La Serva Padronu), which was acted 
at Edinburgh in 1763, and printed in the same 
year. It is improbable that he was (as stated 
in the British Museum Catalogue) the ' Mr. 
Baker ' who, in 1745, wrote a preface to the 
translation of the 'Continuation of Don 
Quixote ; ' for he was then but fifteen years of 
age, and we may be sure that this instance 
of his son's precocity would have been men- 
tioned by Henry Baker in the letter to Dod- 
dridge. 

[Diary and Correspondence of Doddridge, 
v. 29; Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, v. 274, 276, 
277; Biographia Dramatica, 1782. 1812; Notes 
and Queries, 2nd ser. via. 94 ; Watt's Bibl. Brit. ; 
British Museum Catalogue.] A. H. B. 



Baker 



Baker 



BAKER, FRANKLIN (1800-1867), 
Unitarian minister, was born in Birming- 
ham 27 Aug. 1 800. He was the eldest son of 
Mr. Thomas Baker of that town. After the 
usual school education, and when unusually 
young for such a charge, he took the manage- 
ment of Baylis's school at Dudley. One of his 
early friends and advisers was the Rev. John 
Kentish, of Birmingham ; another was the 
Rev. James Hews Bransby, of Dudley, who 
directed his private studies by way of prepar- 
ing himfor the university of Glasgow, withthe 
view of his ultimately becoming a Unitarian 
minister. By the aid of a grant from Dr. 
Daniel Williams's trustees he was enabled to 
go to Glasgow, where he spent three sessions 
and graduated M.A. On the completion of 
his college course in 1823 he was invited to 
become minister of Bank Street chapel, Bol- 
ton, a charge which he accepted, though 
there had been dissensions there which made 
his work difficult. His connection with the 
chapel lasted for forty years, during which 
time the congregation became one of the 
most prosperous in the county, and the chapel 
was entirely rebuilt. In his earlier time, 
when the dissenters were battling for equal 
rights, he engaged in the political move- 
ments of the day, but his after-life was 
devoted to the w r ork of his calling and the 
promotion of the charitable and educational 
institutions of the town. No one in that 
community was more heartily respected than 
Baker, and he received gratifying testi- 
mony of this in an offer from the lord lieu- 
tenant of the county to insert his name in 
the commission of the peace. He did not, 
however, consider it consistent with his 
position to accept it. Besides occasional 
sermons and pamphlets on matters of passing 
interest, he was the author of various articles 
in the ' Penny Cyclopaedia.' He also pub- 
lished in 1854 a ' History of the Rise and 
Progress of Nonconformity in Bolton.' This 
work is a valuable and accurate record, 
covering a period of 200 years. He resigned 
his ministerial position 'in 1864, and retired 
to Caton, on the banks of the Lune, but at 
the end of three years he removed to Bir- 
mingham, where he could have the attention 
of a brother, who held a high medical posi- 
tion. He died 25 May 1867. 

[Information from Sir Thomas Baker; The 
Inquirer, 8 June 1867; Unitarian Herald, 31 May 
!867.] C. W. S. 

BAKER, GEOFFREY O 1350), chroni- 
cler, whose name has been given less correctly 
as WALTBB OP SWINBEOKE, or, according to 
Camden, of Swinborn, was, to quote his own 
description of himself, by profession a clerk, 



and drew up his shorter and earlier chronicle 
at Osney, near Oxford, by the request of 
Thomas de la More, knight. Swinbroke, Ox- 
j fordshire, seems to have been his native place. 
j Camden, but apparently without authority, 
j calls him a canon of the Augustinian founda- 
' tion at Osney, and in this statement has been 
1 followed by both Pits and Tanner. The 
same authorities declare that this Walter or 
Geoffrey Baker only translated into Latin an 
account of Edward II's reign, which Sir 
j Thomas de la More had previously drawn up 
! in French (' Gallice scripsit '). As a matter of 
! fact, however, there appear to be two chroni- 
I cles due to the pen of Geoffrey Baker. Of 
I these the earlier and shorter extends from the 
j first day of creation to the year 1326. This 
very scanty work has a double method of 
marking the dates, namely, by the common 
method of the Christian era, and by the dis- 
tance of each event from. 1347. A note tells 
us that it was completed on Friday, St. 
Margaret's day (13 July), 1347. The second 
and by far the more important of Geoffrey's 
two compilations is a longer chronicle ex- 
tending from 1303 to 1356. This chronicle 
is, at all events for its earliest years, based 
upon that of Adam of Murimuth, or both 
writers have borrowed largely from a common 
source (cf. Chron. of Adam of Murimuth, 
p. 88, with that of Geoffrey Baker, p. 134). 
But, to use Dr. Stubbs's words, ' Geoffrey adds 
very largely to Murimuth, and more largely 
as he approaches his own time of writing/ 
This second chronicle purports, according to 
its heading, to have been drawn up by Geof- 
| frey le Baker of Swinbroke, clerk, at the re- 
quest of Thomas de la More. This knight is 
; mentioned by name in one passage relating* 
to the resignation of Edward II as the French 
chronicler whose interpreter, in some degree, 
the present compiler, Geoffrey Baker, is (' cu- 
jus ego sum talis qualis interpres'). Hence 
it would appear that Sir Thomas de la More 
had drawn up a French account of at least 
the reign of Edward II, of which Geoffrey 
Baker availed himself in his longer chronicle. 
Sir Thomas's original work has w r holly dis- 
; appeared. In the early years of Q.ueen Eliza- 
beth manuscript copies of what purported 
; to be a Latin translation of Sir Thomas's 
'Life and Death of Edward II' were in cir- 
I dilation, and Camden printed a version of 
i that work in the ' Vita et Mors Edwardi II,' 
published in his 'Anglica Scripta' (1603). 
But both the manuscript translation and 
: Carnden's publication seem to be merely ab- 
; breviated extracts from Baker's longer chroni- 
, cle (cf. introduction to STUBBS'S Chronicles of 
\ the Reigtis ofEdivard I and II) . Dr. Stubbs 
j has pointed out, as perhaps a partial expla- 



Baker 



Baker 



nation of the connection of Geoffrey Baker's 
work with that of Adam of Miirimuth, and 
with that attributed to Sir Thomas de la 
More, that Swinbroke, the home of Geoffrey, 
Northmoor, from which Sir Thomas in all 
probability drew his name, and ' Fifield, the 
lordship of the house of Murimuth, all lay 
within the hundred of Chadlington,' on the 
borders of Oxfordshire. The only other event | 
that can be considered as fairly certain in 
the life of Geoffrey Baker is, that some time 
after the great pestilence of 1349 he had, as 
he himself tells us, seen and spoken with 
William Bisschop, the comrade of Gurney 
and Maltravers, Edward II's murderers, and 
from his lips had gathered many of the tragic 
details of that king's last days. 

[Stubbs's Chronicles of Ed. 1 and II (R.S.) ii. 
Introduction, Ivii-lxxv ; Giles's Chronica Galfridi 
le Baker (Caxton Society), pp. 43, 46, 85, 90, 
91; Hardy's Catalogue, iii. 389-91; Pits, 846; 
Fabric. Biblioth. Lat. iii. 112; Tanner (under 
Walter and Geoffrey Baker), who distinguishes 
the writer of the shorter from the writer of the 
longer chronicle ; Camden's Anglica, Authorum 
Vita, and 593-603. Manuscript copies of the Vita 
etMors are in the British Museum: Cotton MSS. 
Vitell. E. 5 ; Harley MSS. 310. Geoffrey Baker's 
two chronicles are to be found in the Bodleian 
Library (MS. Bodley, 761), and are possibly in 
the author's own handwriting.] T. A. A. 

BAKER, GEOEGE (1540-1600), sur- 
geon, was a member of the Barber Surgeons' 
Company and was elected master in 1597. 
In 1574, when he published his first book, 
Baker was attached to the household of the 
Earl of Oxford, and the writings of his con- 
temporaries show that he had already at- 
tained to considerable practice in London. 
Banester of Nottingham speaks of his emi- 
nence in Latin verse : 

Ergo Bakere tuum superabit sidera nomen, 
Atque aliqua semper parte superstes eris. 

And Clowes, another contemporary, prophe- 
sies the lasting fame of his works in English 
verse of the same quality. His first book is 
called ' The Composition or Making of the 
most excellent and pretious Oil called Oleum 
Magistrate and the Third Book of Galen. A 
Method of Curing Wounds and of the Errors 
of Surgeons,' 8vo. In 1576 Baker published 
a translation of the ' Evonymus ' of Conrad 
Gesner under the title of ' The Newe Jewell 
of Health, wherein is contayned the most 
excellent Secretes of Physicke and Philoso- 
phie devided into fower bookes,' 4to. Baker's 
own preface to the ' Newe Jewell ' is a good 
piece of English prose. He defends, as do 
many authors of that time, the writing a 
book on a learned subject in the vulgar 



tongue. He was in favour of free transla- 
tion, ' for if it were not permitted to translate 
but word for word, then I say, away with 
all translations.' The book treats of the 
chemical art, a term used by Baker as syn- 
onymous with the art of distillation. Dis- 
tilled medicines, he says, exceed all others 
in power and value, ' for three drops of oil 
of sage doth more profit in the palsie, three 
drops of oil of coral for the falling sickness, 
three drops of oil of cloves for the cholicke, 
than one pound of these decoctions not dis- 
tilled.' Both in this and in his other treatises 
on pharmacy, the processes are not always 
fully described, for Baker was, after all, against 
telling too much. ' As for the names of the 
simples, I thought it good to write them in 
the Latin as they were, for by the searching 
of their English names the reader shall very 
much profit ; and another cause is that I 
would not have every ignorant asse to be 
made a chirurgian by my book, for they 
would do more harm with it than good.' 
Baker's 'Antidotarie of Select Medicine,' 
1579, 4to, is another work of the same kind. 
He also published two translations of books 
on general surgery : Guide's ' Questions,' 
1579, 4to, and Vigo's ' Chirurgical Works,' 
1586. Both had been translated before, and 
were merely revised by Baker. He wrote 
an essay on the nature and properties of 
quicksilver in a book by his friend Clowes in 
1584, and an introduction to the ' Herball ' of 
their common friend Gerard in 1597. This 
completes the list of his works, all of which 
were published in London. The ' Galen ' was 
reprinted in 1599, as also was the ' Jewell ' 
under the altered title of ' The Practice of 
the New and Olde Physicke.' 

[Works of Baker and of Clowes.] IS". M. 

BAKER, SIR GEORGE (1722-1809), 
physician, was the son of the vicar of Mod- 
bury, Devonshire, and was born in that 
county in 1722. He was educated at Eton 
and at King's College, Cambridge, of which 
college he became a fellow and graduated 
in 1745. He proceeded M.D. in 1756, and 
the following year was elected a fellow of 
the College of Physicians. He began to prac- 
tise at Stamford in Lincolnshire, but in 1761 
settled in London. He soon attained a large 
practice, and became F.R.S., physician to the 
queen and to the king, and a baronet in 1776. 
Between 1785 and 1795 he was nine times 
elected president of the College of Physicians, 
and in his own day was famed for deep medical 
learning. He was a constant admirer of lite- 
rature as well as of science, and wrote grace- 
ful Latin prose and amusing epigrams. Baker 
made an important addition to medical know- 



Baker 



Baker 



ledge in the discovery that theDevonshire colic 
and the colica Pictonum were forms of lead- 
poisoning. That lead would produce similar 
symptoms was known, but no one had sug- 
gested the connection between these forms 
of colic and lead, and they were reputed en- 
demic to the soil or climate of Devonshire 
and of Poitou. Baker, as a Devonshire man, 
was familiar with the disease. He noticed 
that it was most common whe v e most cider 
was made in Devonshire, and that in Here- 
fordshire, where cider was also a local pro- 
duction, colic was almost unknown. He in- 
quired into the process of manufacture, and 
found that in the structure of the Devonshire 
presses and vats large pieces of lead were 
used, while in Herefordshire stone, wood, and ' 
iron formed all the apparatus. That colic 
and constipation, followed by palsy, might 
be produced by lead, was known. Baker com- 
pleted his argument by extracting lead from ! 
Devonshire cider and showing that there i 
was none in that of Herefordshire. Great ' 
was the storm that arose. He was denounced 
as a faithless son of Devonshire ; the lead 
discovered was said to be due to shot left in 
the bottles after cleaning, the colic to acid 
humours of the body (A.LCOCK, The En- 
demial Colic of Devon not earned by a Solu- 
tion of Lead in the Cider, Plymouth, 1768, 
&c.) Baker extended and repeated his experi- 
ments, and at last convinced the Devonians, 
so that from that time forth leaden vessels 
were disused, and with their disuse colic 
ceased to be endemic in Devonshire. In other 
essays Baker traced other unsuspected ways 
in which lead-poisoning might occur, as from 
leaden water-pipes, from tinned linings of 
iron vessels, from the glaze of earthenware, 
and from large doses of medicinal prepara- 
tions of lead. He examined the subsequent 
symptoms in detail, and left the whole sub- 
ject clear and in perfect order. His other 
works are, a graduation thesis, 1755 ; a Har- 
veian oration, 1761 ; ' On the Epidemic In- 
fluenza and Dysentery of 1762,' 1764 ; the 
preface to the ' Pharmacopeia ' of 1788, all 
in Latin ; and in English ' An Inquiry into 
the Merits of a Method of Inoculating the 
Small-pox,' 1766, and some other medical 
essays contained in the collected edition of 
his ' Medical Tracts ' published by his son 
in 1818. His portrait was painted by Ozias 
Humphrey, R.A., and is preserved at the j 
College of Physicians. Baker retired from 
active practice in 1798, and after a healthy ! 
old age died on 15 June 1809. He is buried i 
in St. James's Church, Piccadilly. 

[Hunk's Roll, ii. 213; Baker's Medical Tracts 
& c -] N.M. 



BAKER, GEORGE (1773 P-1847), mu- 
sician, was probably born in 1773. He him- 
self, at the time of his matriculation at Oxford 
in 1797, stated his age to be twenty-four, 
thus dating his birth at 1773 ; in after life, 
however, he considered himself to have been 
born in 1750. But the later date is most 
probably the correct one, since the eccentri- 
cities of character which marked the latter 
part of his life might well account for his 
imagining himself much older than he really 
was. He was born at Exeter, and received 
his first musical instruction from his mother's 
sister, becoming, it is said, a proficient on 
the harpsichord at the age of seven. He was 
next placed under Hugh Bond and William 
Jackson of Exeter, remaining there until his 
seventeenth year, when he came to London 
under the patronage of the Earl of Uxbridge. 
His patron caused him to become a pupil of 
Cramer and Dussek, and during his resi- 
dence in London he performed ' his cele- 
brated " Storm"' at the Hanover Square 
Rooms, meeting with the approbation of Dr. 
Burney. In 1794 or 1795 he was appointed 
organist of St. Mary's Church, Stafford, a 
new organ by Geib having been purchased 
five years before. He seems to have matri- 
culated and taken the degree of Mus. Bac. in 
1797 at Oxford, but he appears not to have 
taken his doctor's degree during his resi- 
dence at Stafford, for in the Corporation 
Books of that town he is called ' Mr. Baker.' 
The same documents hint at a state of affairs 
that can hardly have been satisfactory. On 
5 March 1795 there is an entry to the effect 
' that the organist be placed under restric- 
tions as to the use of the organ, and that the 
mayor have a master key to prevent him 
having access thereto.' And on 16 July in 
the same year ' it is ordered that Mr. George 
Baker be in future prohibited from playing 
the piece of music called " The Storm." ' 
The inhabitants of Stafford did not therefore 
concur in Dr. Burney's opinion as to the ex- 
cellence of this piece, apparently its com- 
poser's chef d'oeuvre. During the following 
years several entries prove that Baker ha- 
bitually neglected his duties, and on 19 May 
1800 the entry is 'Resignation of Baker? 
In 1799 he had married the eldest daughter 
of the Rev. E. Knight of Milwich. If he 
ever took the degree of Mus. Doc., it must 
have been in or before 1800, as after that 
year the registers in Oxford were most care- 
fully kept, but they contain no entry of 
the kind, while from 1763 to 1800 musical 
degrees were systematically omitted from 
the register, so that the absence of his name 
from the list does not absolutely prove that 
he did not receive the degree. In the pub- 



Baker 



Baker 



lislied copies of several glees, printed about 
this time and dedicated to the Earl of Ux- 
bridge, he is called simply ' Mus. Bac. Oxon. ; ' 
thus we are entitled to regard his claim to 
the more distinguished title as at least pro- 
blematical. In 1810 he was appointed to 
the post of organist at All Saints', Derby, 
and finally, in 1824, he accepted a similar 
situation at Rugeley, where he remained 
until his death, which took place on 19 Feb. 
1847. Since 1839 his duties had been un- 
dertaken by a deputy. He produced a large 
number of compositions, which are now com- 
pletely forgotten. He is said to have been 
singularly handsome, with an exceedingly 
fair complexion ; generous, even to the point 
of improvidence. In his later years the ec- 
centricities, which probably gave rise to a 
large proportion of his difficulties with the 
Stafford authorities, increased, and he was 
moreover afflicted with deafness. 

[Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians ; 
Corporation Books at Stafford ; Kegisters at 
Oxford; Musical World, 17 April 1847.] 

J. A. F. M. 

BAKER, GEORGE (1781-1851), topo- 
grapher, was a native of Northampton. While 
a schoolboy, at the age of thirteen, he wrote 
a manuscript history of Northampton, and 
from that time he was always engaged in 
enlarging his collections. His first printed 
work was ' A Catalogue of Books, Poems, 
Tracts, and small detached pieces, printed 
at the press at Strawberry Hill, belonging 
to the late Horace Walpole, earl of Orford,' 
London (twenty copies only, privately 
printed), 1810, 4to. His proposals for ' The 
History and Antiquities of the County of 
Northampton' were issued in 1815. The 
first part was published in folio in 1822, the 
second in 1826, and the third, completing 
the first volume, in 1830. This volume con- 
tains the hundreds of Spelho, Newbottle 
Grove, Fawsley, Warden, and Sutton. The 
fourth part, containing the hundreds of 
Norton and Cleley, appeared in 1836, and 
about one-third of a fifth part, containing 
the hundred of Towcester, in 1841. At the 
latter date, 220 of his original subscribers 
had failed him, and with health and means 
exhausted he was compelled to bring the 
publication to a close. His library and manu- 
script collections were dispersed by auction j 
in 1842, the latter passing into the possession 
of Sir Thomas Phillipps. Baker's ' North- | 
amptonshire ' is, on the whole, as far as it 
goes, the most complete and systematic of 
all our county histories. In the elaboration 
and accuracy of its pedigrees it is unsur- 
passed. An index to the places mentioned 



in the work was published at London in 
1868. 

Baker, who was a Unitarian, took a deep 
interest in various local institutions, and 
was a magistrate for the borough of North- 
ampton. He was not married. A sister, 
Miss Aune Elizabeth Baker [q. v.], was his 
constant companion for more than sixty years. 
He died at his residence, Mare Fair, North- 
ampton, 12 Oct. 1851. 

[Northampton Mercury, 13 Oct. 1851 ; North- 
ampton Herald, 18 Oct. 1851 ; Quarterly Keview, 
ci. 1 ; Gent. Mag. (N.S/i xxxvi.551, 629; Notes 
and Queries, 4th series, i. 11, 376, 5th series, iii. 
447 ; Cat. of Printed Books in Brit. Mus. ; 
Addit. MS. 24864 ff. 75, 77, 79, 81, 83, 85, 87; 
Egerton MS. 2248 ff. 71, 112.] T. C. 

BAKER, HENRY (1734-1766), author, 
was born at Enfield, Middlesex, 10 Feb. 1734, 
the second son of Henry Baker, F.R.S. [q.v.], 
and Sophia, daughter of Daniel Defoe. Ac- 
cording to Nichols (Anecdotes of Boioyer, 
416), he followed the profession of a lawyer, 
but in no creditable line. He contributed oc- 
casional poetry and essays to periodicals, and 
in 1756 published, in two volumes, ' Essays 
Pastoral and Elegiac.' Wilson, in his ' Life 
of Defoe,' states that he died 24 Aug. 1776, 
and was buried in the churchyard of St. 
Mary-le-Strand beside his mother, but the 
parish register gives the date of his burial as 
24 Aug. 1766. According to Chalmers, he 
left ready for the press an arranged collec- 
tion of all the statutes relating to bank- 
ruptcy, with cases, precedents, &c., entitled 
' The Clerk to the Commission,' which is sup- 
posed to have been published under another 
title in 1768. His son, William Baker, born 
1763, afterwards rector of Lyndon and South 
Luffenham, Rutlandshire, inherited the pro- 
perty and papers of Henry Baker, F.R.S. 

[Notes and Queries, 2nd series, viii. 94 ; 
Nichols's Anecdotes of Bowyer, 416 ; Nichols's 
Literary Anecdotes, v. 277-8 ; Wilson's Life of 
Defoe, iii. 647 ; Chalmers's Biog. Diet. iii. 341.] 

T. F. H. 

BAKER, HENRY, F.R.S. (1698-1774), 
naturalist and poet, was born in Chancery 
Lane, 8 May 1698, the son of William 
Baker, a clerk in chancery. In his fifteenth 
year he was apprenticed to John Parker, 
bookseller, whose shop was afterwards occu- 
pied by Dodsley, of the ' Annual Register.' 
At the close of his indentures in 1720, Baker 
went on a visit to John Forster, a relative, 
who had a daughter, then eight years old, 
born deaf and dumb. Although considerable 
attention had already been given in England 
to the education of deaf mutes, no method 



Baker 



10 



Baker 



of instruction was in general use ; and with 
characteristic ingenuity Baker set himself to 
instruct her by an improved system of his own. 
His experiment was so successful that he re- 
solved to make the education of deaf mutes 
his chief employment ; and his services being 
in great demand among the upper classes, he 
soon realised a substantial fortune. Regard- 
ing the character of his method there is no 
information, for he wished to retain his own 
secret, and it is said took a bond of 100/. 
from each pupil not to divulge it. His re- 
markable success attracted the attention of 
Defoe, who invited him to his house ; and 
in April 1729, after some delay in the ar- 
rangement of settlements, he married Defoe's 
youngest daughter, Sophia. 

In the earlier period of his life, Baker de- 
voted much of his leisure to the writing 
of verse. The l Invocation of Health ' ap- 
peared in 1723 without his sanction, and 
in the same year he published ' Original 
Poems,' a volume which was reprinted in 
1725. Some indication of the result of his 
studies in natural science was given by the 
publication in 1727 of 'The Universe, a 
Poem intended to restrain the Pride of Man,' 
the last edition of which was that of 1805, 
with a short life prefixed. In 1737 he brought 
out, in two volumes, 'Medulla Poetarum 
Romanorum,' a selection from the Roman 
poets, with translations ; and in 1739 he pub- 
lished a translation of Moliere. His verse 
is spirited and rhythmical, but the sentiments 
are hackneyed, and the wit artificial, true 
poetic inspiration being imitated by sounding 
but commonplace rhetoric. In 1728, under 
the name of Henry Stonecastle, he began, 
along with Defoe, the ' Universal Spectator 
and Weekly Journal,' the first number being 
written by Defoe. The copy of the journal 
which belonged to Baker is now in the Hope 
collection of newspapers in the Bodleian Li- 
brary, and attached to it there is a tabular 
statement by Baker of the authors of the 
several essays. The last of those written by 
Baker was published 19 May 1733. 

In January 1740, Baker was elected a 
fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and 
in March following a fellow of the Royal 
Society. Along with Mr. Folkes he began 
to make experiments on the polypus, and 
continuing them after Mr. Folkes was too 
much immersed in other matters to give 
the subject his attention, he published the 
result of his observations in the ' Philosophical 
Transactions,' and afterwards, in 1743, in a 
separate treatise. The same year appeared 
The Microscope made Easy,' a work which 
at once became popular, and went through 
several editions. In 1744 he was awarded 



the Copley medal for his microscopical ex- 
periments on the crystallisations and con- 
figurations of saline particles. His earlier 
treatise was supplemented, in 1753, by the 
publication, in two parts, of ' Employment 
for the Microscope,' which attracted an equal 
amount of attention. These two works con- 
tain the bulk of his more important com- 
munications on the subject to the Royal 
Society. Besides communicating to the so- 
ciety many interesting results of his own 
experiments, he supplied to it much important 
information by means of the extensive corre- 
spondence he carried on with men of science 
of other countries. In this way we also owe 
to him the introduction into England of the 
Alpine strawberry and of the rhubarb plant 
(Rheum palmatuin). He took a very active 
part in the establishment of the Society of 
Arts in 1754. For a considerable time he dis- 
charged gratuitously the office of secretary, 
and he was for many years chairman of the 
committee of accounts. He died at his apart- 
ments in the Strand 25 Nov. 1774. Nichols, 
in his ' Anecdotes of Bowyer,' states that he 
was buried in the churchyard of St.Mary-le- 
Strand, but there is no mention of his burial 
in the register. His two sons, David Erskine 
Baker and Henry Baker, are noticed sepa- 
rately. The bulk of his property and his 
manuscripts were bequeathed to his grand- 
son, William Baker, afterwards rector of Lyn- 
don and South Luflenham, Rutlandshire. "By 
his will he bequeathed to the Royal Society 
100/. for the institution of an oration, now 
known as the Bakerian. He had formed an 
extensive natural history and antiquarian 
collection, which was sold by auction on 
13 March 1775 and the nine following days. 
[Biographia Britannica, ed. Kippis, i. 525-8 
(imperfect and incorrect) ; Nichols's Anecdotes 
of Wm. Bowyer, 413-16, 596, 645 ; Chalmers's 
Biog. Diet. iii. 337-8 ; Wilson's Life of Defoe, 
iii. 549-50,603-5, 646-7; Lee's Life of Defoe, 
439, 441, 455-9 ; Nicho]s's Literary Anecdotes, 
v. 272-7; Correspondence of Dr. Philip Dod- 
dridae; Phil. Trans.; MSS. Sloane 4435 and 
4436~; MSS. Egerton 738 and 834.] T. F. H. 

BAKER, HENRY AARON (1753-1836), 

Irish architect, was a pupil of James Gandon, 
'and acted as clerk of the works to the 
buildings designed and chiefly constructed 
by his master for the Inns of Court, then 
called the King's Inns, at Dublin.' He was 
a member of, and for some time secretary to, 
the Royal Hibernian Academy. In 1787 lie 
was appointed teacher of architecture in the 
Dublin Society's school, and retained the post 
till his death. He erected the triumphal arch 
known as Bishop's Gate at Derry, and he 
gained (1802-4) the first prize for a design 



Baker 



Baker 



for converting the Irish parliament house 
into a bank. The superintendence of that 
work was given, however, to another archi- 
tect, Francis Johnstone. He died on 7 June 
1836. 

[Duhigg's History of the Kings Inns, 1806; 
Mulvany's Life of J. Gandon, Dublin, 1846 ; 
Diet. Architectural Publication Society, 1853; 
Redgrave's Diet, of Artists, 1879.] E. R. 

BAKER, SIB HENRY WILLIAMS 

(1821-1877), hymn writer, was the son 
of Vice-admiral Sir Henry Loraine Baker, 
C.B., by his marriage with Louisa Anne, 
only daughter of William Williams, Esq., 
of Castle Hall, Dorset. His father served 
with distinction at Guadaloupe in 1815. 
His grandfather was Sir Robert Baker of 
D unstable House, Surrey, and of Nicholas- 
hayne, Culmstock, Devon, on whom a ba- 
ronetcy was conferred in 1796. Sir Henry 
Williams Baker was born in London on 
Sunday, 27 May 1821, at the house of his 
maternal grandfather ; and after completing 
his university education at Trinity College, 
Cambridge, took his B.A. degree in 1844, and 
proceeded M.A. in 1847. In 1851 he was 
presented to the vicarage of Monkland near 
Leominster. On the death of his father, 
on 2 Nov. 1859, he succeeded him as third 
baronet. In 1852, while at Monkland, Sir 
Henry wrote his earliest hymn, ' Oh, what 
if we are Christ's.' Two others, 'Praise, O 
praise our Lord and King,' and ' There is a 
blessed Home,' have been referred to 1861 j 
(SELBOKNE'S Book of Praise, pp. 176, 207-8, | 
288-9). Sir Henry Baker's name is chiefly | 
known as the promoter and editor of ' Hymns 
Ancient and Modern,' first published in 1861. 
To this collection Baker contributed many 
original hymns, besides several translations 
of Latin hymns. In 1868 an ' Appendix ' to i 
the collection was issued, and in 1875 the j 
work was thoroughly revised. The hymnal 
was compiled to meet the wants of church- | 
men of all schools, but strong objections | 
were raised in many quarters to Sir Henry 
Baker's own hymn addressed to the Virgin 
Mary, ( Shall we not love thee, Mother dear ? ' i 
Sir Henry Baker held the doctrine of the 
celibacy of the clergy, and at his death the 
baronetcy devolved on a kinsman. He was ! 
the author of l Daily Prayers for the Use of | 
those who have to work hard,' as well as of 
a ' Daily Text-book ' for the same class, and ; 
of some tracts on religious subjects. He died j 
on Monday, 12 Feb. 1877, at the vicarage of 
Monkland, and was buried in the churchyard , 
of the parish. Stained glass windows have j 
been put up to his memory in his own church 
and in All Saints, Netting Hill. 



[Foster's Baronetage, 1882; Gent. Mag., June 
1796 and Dec. 1859 ; Crockforcl's Clerical Direc- 
tory, 1877; Annual Register, 1877; Literary 
Churchman, 24 Feb. 1877 ; Academy, 24 Feb. 
1877; Church Times, 16 and 23 Feb. 1877; 
Guardian, 21 Feb. 1877 ; Earl Selborne's Book 
of Praise, 1865 : Miller's Singers and Songs of 
the Church, 1869; Stevenson's Methodist Hymn 
Book, illustrated, with Biography, &c., 1883.] 

A. H. G-. 

BAKER, HUMPHREY (fl. 1562-1587), 
writer on arithmetic and astrology, was a 
Londoner. In 1562 he published ' The Well- 
spring of Sciences,' said by Henry Phil- 
lippes, who edited and enlarged the work in 
1670, to have been one of the first and ' one 
of the best books on arithmetic which had 
appeared up to that date in this country.' 
Phillippes does not name Cocker, who had 
given to the world his celebrated book two 
years previously, but he can hardly have 
considered Baker's work superior or even on 
a par with it. Baker was an enthusiast for 
his science. In the dedication of his edition 
of 1574 'to the Governor, Consuls, Asis- 
tentes, &c. of the Company of Merchentes 
Adventurers,' he excuses himself for not 
entering fully into the merits of arithmetic, 
on the ground that ' where good wine is to 
sell, there neede no garlande, be haged out.' 
He nevertheless proceeds to state that it is 
well known 'that the skil hereof imme- 
diately flowed from the wisdome of God into 
the harte of man, whome he coulde not con- 
ceave to remayne in the most secrete mis- 
terie of Trinitie in Unitie, were it not by 
the benifite of most Devine skill in Numbers. 
. . .Take away Arithmetick, wherein differeth 
the Shepparde fr5 the sheepe, or the horse 
keeper from the Asse ? It is the key and 
entrance into all other artes and learninge, 
as well approved Pythagoras, who caused 
this inscription to be written (upon his 
schoole doore where hee taught Philosophy) 
in greate letters, " Nemo Arithmetics igna- 
narus hie ingrediatur." ' He calls the rule 
of three ' the golden rule.' Phillippes added 
considerably to Baker's book in his edition, 
giving us, among other things, a chapter ' Of 
Sports and Pastime done by numbers. To 
know what number any one thinketh,' &c. 
In the library of the British Museum, there 
are six different editions of Baker's work, 
from 1574 to 1655, besides Phillippes's edi- 
tion of 1670. 

Baker also translated from the French and 
published in London in 1587 a little book in 
black letter entitled ' The Rules, &c. touch- 
ing the use and practice of the common 
almanacs which are named Ephemerides, a 
brief and short instruction upon the Judicial 



Baker 



Astrologie for to prognosticate of things to 
come by the help of the same Ephemerides, 
with a treatise added hereunto touching the 
conjunction of the Planets and of their Prog- 
nostications/ &c. Among the prognostica- 
tions are such as these : ' If the moon be in 
conjunction with Jupiter, it is good to let 
blood,' 'If Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and the 
moon be found conjoined in the sign of Leo, 
men shall be grieved with pains of the 
stomach.' 

[Baker's Wellspring of Sciences, 1574 and ed. 

hillippes, 1670 ; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.] 

P. B. A. 



Phillippes, 1670 ; 



BAKER, SIE JOHN (d. 1558), chancel- 
lor of the exchequer, is said to have been of 
a Kentish family ; but, as Lodge says, ' his 
pedigree at the College of Arms begins with 
his own name ' (Illust. of English History, 
2nd edition, i. 60). He was bred for the 
law. In 1526 he was joined with Henry 
Standish, bishop of St. Asaph, in an embassy 
sent to Denmark. Not long afterwards he 
was elected speaker of the House of Commons, 
and subsequently appointed attorney-general 
and a member of the privy council. In 1545 
he was made chancellor of the exchequer. 
Lodge states that Baker was distinguished 
by being the only privy councillor who re- 
fused to put his name to the ' Device for the 
Succession,' which Edward VI drew up when 
on his death-bed, and which was designed to 
exclude the princesses Mary and Elizabeth 
from the succession. This statement is re- 
futed by the fact that Baker's name appears 
at the foot both of this document and of the 
' Letters patent for the limitation of the 
Crown ' which were subsequently issued (see 
the publication of both by Mr. J. G. NICHOLS 
in his Queen Jane and Queen Mary, Caniden 
Soc.). Baker continued in his office until his 
death in December 1558. Almost his last 
employment in the service of the state was 
upon a commission appointed in March 1558 
to see to the defences of the country. He 
married Elizabeth, daughter and heir of 
Thomas Dinely, and widow of George Barret, 
Esq. ; he had an estate at Sisinghurst, Kent ; 
and was grandfather of the chronicler, Sir 
Richard Baker [q. v.]. 

[Lodge's Illustrations of English History, 
2nd ed. i. 60; cf. Wood's Athenae Oxon. (Bliss), 
i. 93 ; State Papers, Domestic, Mary, vols. x. xii., 
Eliz. vol. i.] C. F. K 

BAKER, JOHN (1661-1716), admiral, 
was appointed a lieutenant by Lord Dart- 
mouth on 14 Nov. 1688 ; on 12 Oct. 1691 he 
was advanced to be captain of the Mary 
galley, and during the war then raging with 



Baker 

France successively commanded the New- 
castle, the Falmouth, and the Medway, for 
i the greater part of the time in the Medi- 
terranean, but without any opportunity of 
' especial distinction. Early in 1701 he was 
'\ appointed to the Pembroke, and a year later 
to the Monmouth of seventy guns, in which 
< he continued for nearly six years, serving in 
j the grand fleet under *Sir George Rooke or 
' Sir Clowdisley Shovell, at Cadiz and Vigo in 
| 1702, at Gibraltar and Malaga in 1704, at 
Barcelona in 1705, and Toulon in 1707. 
He returned to England with the squadron 
of which so many of the ships were lost 
amongst the Scilly Islands 011 22 Oct. 1707 
| [see SHOVELL, SIR CLOWDISLEY], and, having 
! arrived at the Nore, was ordered to refit 
| and keep the men on board with a view 
; to their being sent to other ships. Baker 
I remonstrated; he thought their case was 
j hard, and that they ought to be allowed to 
go home. 'Most of them,' he wrote, on 
3 Nov., 'have been with me in this ship for 
almost six years, and many have followed me 
from ship to ship for several years before.' 
It does not appear that any good came of 
I the application, which the admiralty pro- 
bably considered a bit of maudlin and absurd 
sentimental^. On 26 Jan. 1707-8 he was 
promoted to be rear-admiral of the white, 
and commanded in the second post under Sir 
George Byng on the coast of Scotland. He 
afterwards conducted the daughter of the 
emperor, the betrothed queen of Portugal, 
from Holland to Spithead, and with Sir 
George Byng escorted her to Lisbon. On 
12 Nov. 1709 he was advanced to be vice- 
admiral of the blue, and hoisted his flag in 
the Stirling Castle as second in command in 
the Mediterranean under Sir John Norris and 
afterwards Sir John Jennings. Towards the 
end of 1711 he was detached by Jennings to 
Lisbon and the Azores, to protect the Portu- 
guese, East India, and Brazil trade, especially 
from Duguay-Trouin and Cassard. In the 
course of a cruise from Lisbon in February 
1711-2 he drove a large Spanish ship ashore 
near Cape St. Mary's, but the weather was 
rough, and before he could approach, the wreck 
was gutted and destroyed by the Portuguese. 
Afterwards he captured a richly laden French 
ship for Martinique, and returned to Lisbon 
by the beginning of March. At the Azores 
he remained till the following September, 
and having intelligence that the Brazil fleet 
was near, he put to sea on the llth, and 
escorted it to the Tagus. He returned to 
England at the peace, and soon after the 
accession of George I was again sent out to 
! the Mediterranean in command of a squadron 
j to negotiate with or restrain the corsairs of 



Baker 



Baker 



North Africa. lie concluded a treaty with 
Tripoli and Tunis, and inflicted punishment 
on some of the Sallee cruisers. He had just 
been relieved by Rear-admiral Charles Corn- 
wall, when he died at Port Mahon, 10 Nov. 
1716. A monument to his memory has been 
erected in Westminster Abbey, for, though 
his is not one of the great historic names of 
the navy, he was, in the words of his epitaph, 
' a brave, judicious, and experienced officer, 
a sincere friend, and a true lover of his 
country.' His nephew, Hercules Baker, a 
captain in the navy, and who was serving in 
the Mediterranean at the time of the vice- 
admiral's death, became, in 1736, treasurer 
of Greenwich Hospital, and held that office 
till his death in 1744. 

[Charnock'sBiog. Nav. ii. 379 ; Official Letters 
in the Public Kecord Office.] J. K. L. 

BAKER, JOHN, D.D. (d. 1745), vice- 
master of Trinity College, Cambridge, was 
admitted to Westminster School, on the foun- 
dation, in 1691, and thence elected to Trinity 
College in 1695 (B.A. 1698, M.A. 1702, B.D. 
1709, D.D. comitiix ret/Hit 1717). He was 
elected a minor fellow of Trinity "2 Oct. 1701, 
and a major fellow 17 April 1702 (Addit. MS. 
5846 f. 1236). In 1722 he was appointed 
vice-master of the college, and in 1731 rector 
of Dickleburgh in Norfolk. He also held the 
perpetual curacy of St. Mary's, Cambridge. 
Baker was the unscrupulous supporter of Dr. 
Richard Bentley in all his measures, and ren- 
dered the master of Trinity great service by 
obtaining signatures in favour of the compro- 
mise between Bentley and Serjeant Miller in 
1719. His subserviency to Bentley is ridi- 
culed in * The Trinity College Triumph : '- 

But Baker alone to the lodge was admitted, 
Where he bow'd and he cring'd, and he smil'd and 
he prated. 

He died 30 Oct. 1745, in Neville's Court 
in Trinity College, where, owing to pecuniary 
misfortunes, he had ceased to be A'ice-master, 
and was buried at All Saints' Church, Cam- 
bridge, according to directions given by him 
a few days before his death. His living of 
Dickleburgh had been sequestrated for the 
payment of his debts. ' He had been a great 
beau,' says Cole, the Cambridge antiquary, 
' but latterly was as much the reverse of it, 
wearing four or five nightcaps under his wig 
and square cap, and a black cloak over his 
cloath gown and cassock, under which were 
various waistcoats, in the hottest weather ' 
(Addit. MS. 5804, f. 81). 

[Addit. MS. 5846, f. 118 b, 5863, f. 208 ; Gra- 
duati Cantabrigienses (1787), 18 ; Monk's Life of 
Bentley (1830), 401, 403; Blomefield's Norfolk 



(1805), i. 196; Gent. Mag. xlix. 640; Welch's 
Alumni Westmon. (Phillimore), 216, 229.] 

T. C. 

BAKER, JOHN, R.A. (d. 1771), flower- 
painter, is said to have been mainly employed 
in the decoration of coaches. His biographer, 
Mr. Edward Edwards, remarks sententiously 
upon the caprice of fashion in this modest de- 
partment of art, and tells us that Baker's 
floral enrichments were thought in their day 
to be of the first order. On the foundation 
of the Royal Academy John Baker was 
elected a member. He died in 1771. 

[Edwards's Anecdotes of Painters ; Bryan's 
Diet, of Artists ; Kedgrave's Artists of the *En- 
School.] E. E. 

BAKER, JOHN WYNN (d. 1775), agri- 
cultural and rural economist, was from 1764 
until the time of his death officially con- 
nected with the Dublin Society, of which he 
had previously been an honorary member. 
His enlightened schemes for the improvement 
of agriculture received liberal support from 
the society. Under its patronage he was 
enabled to establish at Laughlinstown, in the 
county of Kildare, a factory for making all 
kinds of implements of husbandry, to main- 
tain apprentices, and to open classes for prac- 
tical instruction in the science. His 'Ex- 
periments in Agriculture,' published at inter- 
vals from 1766 to 1773, gained for their 
author a wide reputation. Baker died at 
Wynn's Field, co. Kildare, on 24 Aug. 1775. 
In his short life he probably did more for the 
advancement of agriculture in Ireland than 
any of his predecessors. The Royal Society 
had recognised his merits by electing him a 
fellow in 1771. 

Baker also published: 1. 'Considerations 
upon the Exportation of Corn ' (which was 
written at the request of the Dublin So- 
ciety), 8vo, Dublin, 1771. 2. 'A Short De- 
scription and List, with the Prices, of the 
Instruments of Husbandry made in the 
Factory at Laughlinstown,' 8vo, Dublin, 
1767 (3rd ed. 1769). 

[Proceedings of the Dublin Society, vols. 
i.-vii., xii. ; Hibernian Magazine, v. 566 ; Donald- 
son's Agricultural Biography, p. 54.] G. G. 

BAKER, PACIFICUS (1695-1774), 
Franciscan friar, discharged with credit the 
offices of procurator and definitor of his 
order, and was twice elected provincial of 
the English province, first in 1761 and 
secondly in 1770. He appears to have been 
attached to the Sardinian chapel in Lincoln's 
Inn Fields, and he certainly attended at the 
execution of Lord Lovat, 9 April 1747. His- 
death occurred in London 16 March 1774. 



Baker 



Baker wrote: 1. ' The Devout Christian's 
Companion for Holy Days,' London, 1757, 
1 2mo. 2. ' Holy Altar and Sacrifice ex- 
plained in some familiar dialogues on the 
Mass,' London, 1768, 12mo, being an abridg- 
ment of F. A. Mason's ' Liturgical Discourse 
on the Mass.' 3. 'A Lenten Monitor to 
Christians, in pious thoughts on the Gospels 
for every day in Lent, from Ash Wednesday 
to Easter Tuesday, inclusive,' third edition, 
London, 1769, 12mo ; again London, 1827, 8vo. 
4. ' The Christian Advent,' 1782. 5. l Sun- 
days kept holy ; in moral reflections on the 
Gospels for the Sundays from Easter to Ad- 
vent. Being a supplement to the Christian 
Advent and Lenten Monitor,' second edition, 
London, 1772, 12mo. 6. ' The Devout Com- 
municant,' London, 1813, 12mo. 7. ' Essay 
on the Cord of St. Francis.' 8. ' Scripture 
Antiquity.' 9. 'Meditations on the Lord's 
Prayer,' from the French. Dr. Oliver says : 
* Without much originality all these works 
are remarkable for unction, solidity, and 
moderation ; but we wish the style was less 
diffuse and redundant of words.' 

[Oliver's History of the Catholic Religion in 
Cornwall, &c., 543, 571 ; Cat. of Printed Books 
in Brit. Mus.] T. C. 

BAKER, PHILIP, D.D. (/. 1558-1601), 
provost of King's College, was born at 
Bariistaple, Devonshire, in or about 1524, 
and educated at Eton, whence he was 
elected in 1540 to King's College, Cambridge 
(B.A., 1544 ; M.A., 1548 : B.D., 1554 ; D.D., 
1562). He was nominated provost of King's 
College by Queen Elizabeth in 1558. Ba- 
ker held several church livings and cathe- 
dral appointments ; and he was vice-chan- 
cellor of the university in 1561-2. About 
February 1561-2 he was compelled to resign 
the rectory of St. Andrew Wardrobe on 
account of his refusal to subscribe a con- 
fession of faith which Grindal, bishop of 
London, required from all his clergy. Queen 
Elizabeth occupied the provost's lodge at 
King's College during her visit to Cambridge 
in 1564, and Baker was one of the dispu- 
tants in the divinity act then kept before 
her majesty (COOPER, Annals of Cambridge, 
ii. 199, 200). In 1565 some of the fellows 
of the college exhibited articles against Ba- 
ker to Nicholas Bullingham, bishop of Lin- 
coln, their visitor. In these the provost 
was charged with neglect of duty in divers 
particulars, and with favouring popery and 
papists. The bishop gave him certain in- 
junctions, which, however, he disregarded. 
1 By them the provost was enjoined to de- 
stroy a great deal of popish stuff, as mass 
books, couchers, and grails, copes, vestments, 



\ Baker 

candlesticks, crosses, pixes, paxes, and the 
brazen rood, which the provost did not per- 
form, but preserved them in a secret corner.' 

In 1569 the fellows again complained of 
him to Bishop Grindal and Sir William Ce- 
cil, chancellor of the university; and ulti- 
mately the queen issued a special commission 
for the general visitation of the college. 
Thereupon Baker fled to Louvain, ' the great 
receptacle for the English popish clergy,' 
and was formally deprived of the provost- 
ship 22 Feb. 1569-70. About the same 
period he lost all his other preferments. 
Fuller (Hist, of Univ. of Camb. ed. Prickett 
and Wright, 271) says: ' Even such as dis- 
like his judgment will commend his integrity, 
that having much of the college money and 
plate in his custody (and more at his com- 
mand, aiming to secure, not enrich himself), 
he faithfully resigned all ; yea, carefully sent 
back the college horses which carried him 
to the sea side.' 

He was living in 1601, and it is not im- 
probable that he had then been permitted 
to return to England. 

[Baker MS. xxx. 241 ; Cole MS. xiv. 28; Le 
Neve's Fasti Eecl. Anglic, ed. Hardy, i. 528, iii. 
604, 618, 683; Nichols's Progresses of Queen 
Elizabeth, iii. 119, 120; Cooper's Annals of 
Cambridge, ii. 175, 176, 191, 199, 200, 203, 
224, 225, 244-247, 293 ; Cooper's Athen. Cantab, 
ii. 322.] T. C. 

BAKER, Sm RICHARD (1568-1645), 

religious and historical writer, was born 
about 1568. His father, John Baker, is stated 
to have been the elder son of Sir John 
Baker [q.v.], of Sisiiighurst, near Cranbrook, 
Kent , who was chancellor of the exchequer and 
privy councillor in the reign of Henry VIII. 
His mother was Catherine, daughter of 
Reginald Scott, of Scots Hall, near Ashford, 
Kent. His father was disinherited, accord- 
ing to recent accounts, in favour of his 
younger brother, Richard, the head of the 
family in the historian's youth. This Richard 
Baker entertained Queen Elizabeth at the 
family seat of Sisinghurst in 1573, was soon 
afterwards knighted, acted as high sheriff 
of Kent in 1562 and 1582, and died on 
27 May 1594. Care must be taken to dis- 
tinguish between the uncle and nephew. 
Henry, a grandson of the elder Sir Richard 
Baker, and second cousin of the younger, 
was created a baronet in 1611. 

Sir Richard Baker, the writer, became a 
commoner of Hart Hall (afterwards Hertford 
College), Oxford, in 1584, where he shared 
rooms with Sir Henry Wotton. He left 
Oxford without graduating, and studied law 
in London. His education was completed 



Baker 



Baker 



by a foreign tour, which extended as far as 
Poland (BAKER'S Chron. sub anno 1*383). 
On 4 July 1594 the university conferred on I 
him the degree of M.A. (WOOD'S Fasti 
(Bliss), i. 268). In 1003 he was knighted 
by James I at Theobalds, and was then re- 
siding at Ilighgate. In 1620 he was high 
sheriff of Oxfordshire, where he owned the 
manor of Middle Aston. Soon afterwards 
Baker married Margaret, daughter of Sir i 
George Mainwaring, of Ightfield, Shropshire, I 
and good-naturedly became surety for heavy i 
debts owed by his wife's family. He thus j 
fell a victim to a long series of pecuniary I 
misfortunes. In 1625 he was reported to be 
a debtor to the crown, and his property in 
Oxfordshire was seized by the government 
(cf. Cal. State Papers (Dom. 1628-9), p. 383). 
On 17 Oct. 1035 Sir Francis Cottington 
desired of the exchequer authorities ' par- 
ticulars ' of the forfeited land and tenements, 
which were still ' in the king's hands.' Fuller 
writes that he had often heard Baker com- 
plain of the forfeiture of his estates. Utterly 
destitute, Sir Eichard had, about 1635, to 
take refuge in the Fleet prison. There he 
died on 18 Feb. 1644-5, and was buried in 
the church of St. Bride's, Fleet Street. Several 
sons and daughters survived him. Wood 
reports that one of his daughters, all of 
whom were necessarily dowerless, married 
^Bury, a seedsman at the Frying Pan in 
Newgate Street;' and another, 'one Smith, 
of Paternoster Row.' Smith is credited with 
having burned his father-in-law's autobio- 
graphy, the manuscript of which had fallen 
into his hands. 

' The storm of [Baker's] estate,' says 
Fuller, 'forced him to flye for shelter to 
his studies and devotions.' It was after 
Baker had taken up residence in the Fleet 
that he began his literary work. His 
earliest published work, written in a month, 
when he was sixty-eight years old, was en- 
titled ' Cato Variegatus, or Catoes Morall 
Distichs. Translated and Paraphrased with 
variations of Expressing in English Verse, 
by S r Richard Baker, Knight,' London, 1636. 
It gives for each of Cato's Latin distichs five 
different English couplets of very mediocre 
quality, and is only interesting as the work 
of the old man's enforced leisure. In 1037 
Baker's ' Meditations on the Lord's Prayer ' 
was published. In 1638 he issued a transla- 
tion of ' New Epistles by Moonsieur D'Balzac,' 
and in 1639 he began a series of pious medi- 
tations on the Psalms. The first book of the 
series bore the title of ' Meditations and Dis- 
quisitions upon the Seven Psalmes of David, 
commonly called the Penitentiall Psalmes, 
1639.' It was dedicated to Mary, countess 



of Dorset, and to it were appended medita- 
tions ' upon the three last psalmes of David/ 
with a separate dedication to the Earl of 
Manchester. In 1640 there appeared a similar 
treatise ' upon seven consolatorie psalmes of 
David, namely, the 23, the 27, the 30, the 34, 
the 84, the 103, the 116,' with a dedication 
to Lord Craven, who is there thanked by the 
author for 'the remission of a great debt.' 
The last work in the series, ' Upon the First 
Psalme of David,' was also issued in 1640, 
with a dedication to Lord Coventry. (These 
meditations on the Psalms were collected and 
edited with an introduction by Dr. A. B. 
Grosart in 1882.) In 1641 Baker published 
a reasonable ' Apologie for Laymen's Writing 
in Divinity, with a short Meditation upon 
the Fall of Lucifer,' which was dedicated to 
his cousin, 'Sir John Baker, of Sissingherst, 
baronet, son of Sir Henry Baker, first baronet.' 
In 1642 he issued ' Motives for Prayer upon 
the seauen dayes of y e weeke,' illustrated by 
seven curious plates treating of the creation 
of the world, and dedicated to the 'wife of 
Sir John Baker.' A translation of Malvezzi's 
: ' Discourses upon Cornelius Tacitus ' was 
' executed by Baker in 1642 under the direction 
of a bookseller named Whittaker. 

Baker's principal work was a ' Chronicle of 
\ the Kings of Engiand,from the time of the 
I Romans' Government unto the Death of King 
James,' 1643. The author describes the book 
as having been ' collected with so great care 
! and diligence, that if all other of our chro- 
' nicies were lost, this only would be sufficient 
I to inform posterity of all passages memorable, 
or worthy to be known.' The dedication 
was addressed to Charles, Prince of Wales, 
and Sir Henry Wotton contributed a com- 
| mendatory epistle to the author. The ' Chro- 
I nicle ' was translated into Dutch in 1649. It 
reached a second edition in 1653. In 1660 a 
third edition, edited by Edward Phillips, 
Milton's nephew, continued the history till 
1658. Fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and 
eighth editions, with continuations, appeared 
in 1665, 1670, 1674, 1679, and 1684 respec- 
tively. ' The ninth impression, freed from 
many errors and mistakes of the former edi- 
tion,' appeared in 1696. An edition con- 
tinued ' by an impartial hand ' to the close of 
George I's reign was issued in 1730, and was 
reprinted in 1733. An abridgment of the 
'Chronicle' was published in 1684. The 
account of the restoration given in the fourth 
and succeeding editions is attributed to Sir 
Thomas Clarges, Monck's brother-in-law. 
Phillipps and the later anonymous editors of 
the book omit many original documents, 
which are printed in the two original editions. 
Baker's * Chronicle ' was long popular 



Baker 



1 6 



Baker 



with country gentlemen. Addison, in the 
' Spectator ' "(Nos. 269 and 329), represents 
Sir Roger de Coverley as frequently read- 
ing and quoting the ' Chronicle,' which j 
always lay in his hall window. Fielding, 
in 'Joseph Andrews,' also refers to it as 
part of the furniture of Sir Thomas Booby's 
country house. But its reputation with the 
learned never stood very high. Thomas 
Blount published at Oxford in 1672 ' Ani- 
madversions upon S r Richard Baker's " Chro- 
nicle," and its continuation,' where eighty- 
two errors are noticed, but many of these 
are mere typographical mistakes. The serious 
errors imputed to the volume are enough, 
however, to prove that Baker was little of an j 
historical scholar, and depended on very sus- 
picious authorities. Daines Barrington, in 
his ' Observations on the Statutes,' writes 
that ' Baker is by no means so contemptible 
a writer as he is generally supposed to be ; it 
is believed that the ridicule on this " Chro- 
nicle " arises from its being part of the furni- 
ture of Sir Roger de Coverley's hall ' (3rd ed. 
p. 97, quoted in GRANGER)*; but the only 
claim to distinction that has been seriously 
urged in recent times in behalf of the ' Chro- 
nicle' is that it gives for the first time the 
correct date of the poet Gower's death. 

Sir Richard Baker was also the author of 
( Theatrum Redivivum, or the Theatre Vindi- 
cated,' a reply to Prynne's ' Histrio-Mastix,' 
published posthumously in 1662. There are j 
interesting references here to the Elizabethan < 
actors, Tarlton, Burbage, and Alleyn (p. 34), 
and much good sense in the general argu- 
ment. A reprint of the book under the title 
of ' Theatrum Triumphans ' is dated 1670. 

A portrait of Sir Richard appears in the 
frontispiece to the early editions of the 
' Chronicle.' Baker's library is said to have 
been purchased by Bishop Williams, the lord 
keeper, in behalf of Westminster Abbey 
(Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. xi. 384). 

Among the Sloane MSS. (No. 881) is an 
incomplete unpublished work by one Richard 
Baker, entitled, ' Honour, Discours'd of in 
the Theory of it and the Practice, with 
Directions for a prudent Conduct on occur- 
rences of Incivility and Civility.' Dr. Grosart 
assigns this long-winded treatise to Sir 
Richard Baker, the chronicler, and the reli- 
gious spirit in which it is written may for a 
moment support the theory. But the fact 
that the dedication, undoubtedly written by 
the author, is addressed to Henry [Compton] 
bishop of London, proves that the work was 
not completed until after 1675, the date of 
Compton's appointment to the see of London. 
And at that date Sir Richard Baker had been 
dead for more than thirty years. 



[Wood's Athense Oxon. (Bliss), iii. 148-51 ; 
Biog. Brit. (Kippis) ; Granger's Biog. Hist. 
(1775), ii. 321 ; Baker's Meditations on the 
Psalms, ed. Grosart, pp. i-xl ; Notes and 
Queries, 1st ser. ii. 67, 244, 507, vi. 318 (where 
an account of a legend connected with the elder 
Sir Eichard Baker, of no historical importance, 
is fully discussed), 2nd ser. ii. 509, iii. 76 ? 3rd 
ser. ii. 275, 475.] S. L. L. 

BAKER, RICHARD, D.D. (1741-1818), 
theological writer, was educated at Pem- 
broke College, Cambridge, where he gra- 
duated B.A. (as seventh senior optime) in 
1762, M.A. in 1765, and D.D. in 1788. He 
was elected to a fellowship in his college, 
and in 1772 was presented to the rectory of 
Cawston-with-Portland in Norfolk, which 
he held till his death in 1818. His works 
are: 1. 'How the Knowledge of Salvation 
is attainable,' a sermon on John vii. 17, 
1782, 4to. 2. ' The Harmony or Agreement 
of the Four Evangelists, in four parts,' 
London, 1783-87, 8vo. 3. ' The Psalms of 
David Evangelized, wherein are seen the 
Unity of Divine Truth, the Harmony of the 
Old and New Testament, and the peculiar 
Doctrines of Christianity, in agreement with 
the Experience of Believers in all Ages/ 
London, 1811, 8vo. 

[MS. Addit. 19209 f. 36; Chambers's Hist, 
of Norfolk, 198 ; Gent. Mag. Ixxxviii. (i.), 646 ; 
Watt's Bibl. Brit.] T. C. 

BAKER, ROBERT (/. 1562-3), voy a vi- 
to Guinea, started on his first voyage 'to 
seeke for golde ' in October 1562. The ex- 
pedition consisted of two ships, the Minion 
and the Primrose, and was ' set out by Sir 
William Garrard, Sir William Chester, Mr. 
Thomas Lodge, Anthony Hickmaii, and 
Edward Castelin.' Baker's efforts to traffic 
with the natives on the Guinea coast were 
not very successful, and he was wounded in 
a fight. But he returned home in safety early 
in 1563. In November of the same year he made 
a second voyage to ' Guinie and the river of 
Sesto ' as factor in an expedition of two ships, 
the John Baptist and the Marlin, sent out by 
London merchants. On arriving at Guinea, 
Baker landed with eight companions to ne- 
gotiate with the natives, but a storm drove 
the ships from their moorings, and Baker and 
his companions were abandoned. After suf- 
fering much privation six of the nine men 
died. The three survivors were rescued by a 
French ship, and imprisoned in France as 
prisoners of war ; but they appear to have 
been subsequently released. 

Baker wrote accounts in verse of both voy- 
ages, which were printed by Richard Hakluyt 
in his ' Voyages,' in 1589. 



Baker 



Baker 



[Hakluyt's Collections (1810), ii. 518-23; J.H. 
Moore's Collections of Voyages and Travels, i. 
328.] 

BAKER, SAMUEL, D.D. (d. 1660?), 
divine, was matriculated as a pensioner of 
Christ's College, Cambridge, 11 July 1612, 
became B.A. in 1615-6, MA. in 1619, and 
was elected a fellow of his college. On 
7 May 1623 he was incorporated MA. at 
Oxford, and he proceeded B.D. at Cambridge 
in 1627. The corporation of London pre- 
sented him to the rectory of St. Margaret 
Pattens in that city, where he at one time 
enjoyed great popularity as a puritanical 
preacher. He was, however, l taken off' from 
those courses,' and made domestic chaplain to 
Juxon, bishop of London. On 29 Oct. 1636 
he became prebendary of Totenhall in the 
church of St. Paul. Having in 1637 resigned 
the rectory of St. Margaret Pattens, he was, 
on 5 July in the same year, instituted to that 
of St. Mary-at-Hill. On 28 Aug. 1638 the 
king conferred on him a canonry of Windsor. 
This he resigned on 17 May 1639, and on the 
20th of the same month he was nominated 
to a canonry in the church of Canterbury. 
In the same year he was created D.D. In 
1640 he resigned the rectory of St. Christo- 
pher in London, and on 4 April in that year 
became rector of South Weald in Essex. 
Soon after the assembling of the Long par- 
liament he was complained of for having 
licensed certain books and refused his license 
to others, and he was subsequently seques- 
tered from all his preferments, persecuted, 
and imprisoned. 

Baker, who is supposed to have died in 
the early part of 1660, was one of the learned i 
persons who rendered material assistance in j 
the preparation of Bishop Walton's Polyglot 
Bible. 

[MS. Addit. 5863, f. 2076 ; Le Neve's Fasti '] 
Eecl. Anglic, i. 55, ii. 441, iii. 401 ; Lloyd's Me- 
moirs (1677), 512, 517; Heylyn's Hist, of the 
Presbyterians (1670), 456 ; Wood's Fasti Oxon. 
ed. Bliss, i. 374, 412, ii. 392; Prynne's Canter- 
burie's Doome, 225 seq., 360 ; Newcourt's Eeper- 
torium Ecclesiasticum, i. 215, 324, 409, 451 ; 
Journals of the House of Commons, iii. 58. 182.1 

T. C. 

BAKER, THOMAS (1625 ?- 1689), ; 
mathematician, is said to have been fifteen 
years old when he became a battler at Mag- 
dalen Hall, Oxford, in 1640. In spite of the 
puritanical education which, according to 
Wood, he received at the hall, ' he did some 
little petite service for his majesty within the 
garrison of Oxon.' It does not appear what 
was the nature of the ' little employments ' 
through which, according to the same autho- 

YOL. III. 



rity, he became 'minister' of Bishop's 
Nympton, in Devonshire. He was collated 
to the vicarage of Bishop's Nympton in 
i 1681 ; but he seems to have lived for some 
: years previously in that retired spot (perhaps 
| as curate). His secluded life as much of it 
at least as could be spared from professional 
occupations and the cares of a family was 
devoted to mathematical studies. He speaks 
of himself as one ' who pretend(s) not to 
learning nor to the profession of the niathe- 
matic art, but one who(m) at some subcisive 
hours for diversion sake its study much de- 
lights.' He published in 1684 the ' Geome- 
trical Key, or Gate of Equations Unlocked.' 
Montucla remembers having ' read some- 
where' that Baker was imprisoned for debt 
at Newgate ; upon which it was facetiously 
remarked that it would have been better for 
him to have had the key of Newgate than 
that of equations. 

The leading idea of Baker's work is the 
solution of biquadratic equations (and those 
of a lower degree) by a geometrical construc- 
tion, a parabola intersected by a circle. 
The method is distinguished from that of 
Descartes by not requiring the equation to 
be previously deprived of its second term. 
The general principle is worked out in great 
detail ; the author being of opinion that 
conciseness, like * a watch contrived within 
the narrow sphere of the signet of a ring/ is 
rather admirable than useful. Some account 
of the work is given in the ' Transactions of 
the lloyal Society' (referred to below). 

There exists a 'catalogue of the mathe- 
matical works of the learned Mr. Thomas 
Baker, with a proposal about printing the 
same.' The proposal was ' approved and 
agreed to by the council of the lloyal Society,' 
but was not carried out. 

[Bibliograph. Brit. ed. 1 ; Wood's Athen. Oxon. 
ed. Bliss, iv. 286 ; Rigaud s Correspondence of 
Scientific Men of tiie Seventeenth Century; 
Lysons's Magna Britannia, Devonshire, ii. 368 ; 
Birch's History of the Royal Society, iv. 155, 
156, 527 ; Philosophical Transactions, vol. xiv. 
no. 157, pp. 549-50.] F. Y. E. 

BAKER, THOMAS (fl. 1700-1709), 
dramatist, is said to have been the son of an 
eminent attorney of London, and is credited, 
probablv with just cause, with having been 
educated in Oxford. A disparaging estimate 
of his character and his powers is furnished 
in the ' List of Dramatic Authors with some 
Account of their Lives,' attributed to John 
Mottley (the compiler of ' Joe Miller's Jests '), 
which appears at the close of Thomas Whin- 
cop's tragedy of ' Scanderbeg.' According to 
this rather prejudiced authority, Baker * was 



Baker 



18 



Baker 



under disgrace 'with his father, 'who allowed j 
him a very scanty income/ and was com- 
pelled to retire into Worcestershire, where he : 
is reported to have ' died of that loathsome 
disorder, the morbuspediculosus? His name- 
sake, "David Erskine Baker, in the ' Biogra- 
phia Dramatica,' undertakes at some length 
his defence. He, however, states that a cha- 
racter named Maiden, introduced in ' Tun- 
bridge Walks,' the best-known comedy of 
Thomas Baker, was intended by the author 
for himself, and was designed for purpose of 
warning, to place his own failings in a ridicu- 
lous light. If this story, which is unsupported 
by any obtainable evidence, is true, Baker 
must have been sufficiently despicable in early 
life to justify the dislike of his first biographer. 
Maiden, first played by an actor inappropri- 
ately named Bullock, is one of the most effe- 
minate beings ever put on the stage. The 
character sprang into favour, and was imitated 
in the Fribbles and Beau Mizens of sub- 
sequent comedy. The plays of Baker, all of 
them comedies, consist of : 1. 'Humour of the 
Age/ 4to, 1701, played the same year atDrury 
Lane, with Wilks, Mrs. Verbruggen, and Mrs. 
Oldfield in the principal parts. 2. ' Tunbridge 
Walks, or the Yeoman of Kent/ 4to, 1703, 
played 27 Jan. of the same year at Drury 
Lane ; revived at the same theatre in 1738 
and 1764, and at Covent Garden in 1748, and 
given, in three acts, under the title of ' Tun- 
bridge Wells/ at the Haymarket, so late as 
13 Aug. 1782, by Palmer, Parsons, and Mrs. 
Inchbald. 3. ' An Act at Oxford/ 4to, 1704. 
This piece, one scene in which is in the thea- 
tre at Oxford, disclosing the doctors, the un- 
dergraduates, and the ladies, in their proper 
places, commences with the two opening lines 
of the * Iliad/ delivered in Greek by Bloom, 
a gentleman commoner. Its performance was 
prohibited, it is supposed through university 
influence, and it saw the footlights in an al- 
tered version, called (4) ' Hampstead Heath/ 
Drury Lane, 30 Oct. 1705. Under this title 
it wa's reprinted in 4to, 1706. 5. The ' Fine 
Lady's Airs/ 4to, no date (1709), played at 
Drury Lane 14 Dec. 1708, and revived 20 April 
1747. A curious reference to some of these 
plays and to the author occurs in the preface 
to the ' Modern Prophets, or New Wit for a 
Husband/ a comedy by Thomas Durfey, Lon- 
don, no date (1709). In this Durfey speaks 
not very intelligibly of Baker as one of ' a 
couple of bloody male criticks/ from whose 
1 barbarous assassinating attempts ' he has es- 
caped. Durfey condemns the plotless and 
trifling quality of ' Tunbridge Walks/ accuses 
Baker, in reference to two other comedies, of 
having ' brought Oxford upon Hampstead 
Heath/ and declares that the ' Fine Ladies 



Airs' (sic) was 'deservedly hist' (hissed). 
Baker's plays are indeed ( plotless.' They are 
fairly written, however, and are up to the not 
very exalted level of comedies of the period. 
Baker is credited with the authorship of the 
'Female Tatler' (London, 1709), which 
Lowndes, who omits all mention of Baker 
under his name, describes as a ' scurrilous pe- 
riodical paper.' After 1709 all reference to 
Baker ceases. 

[Biographia Dramatica; Gilliland's Dramatic 
Mirror ; G(iles) T(acol))'s Poetical Register, or 
Lives and Characters of the English Poets, l'/23 ; 
Thespian Dictionary; Genest's Account of the 
English Stage ; List of Dramatic Authors ap- 
pended to Whincop's Scanderbeg, 1747, &c.l 

J.K. 

BAKER, THOMAS (1656-1740), an 
eminent author and antiquary, was born at 
Lanchester. in the county palatine of Dur- 
ham, 14 Sept. 1656, the younger son of 
George Baker, esquire, of Crook, and Mar- 
1 garet Forster, his wife. He received his 
early education at Durham, and at the age 
of sixteen was entered a pensioner of St. 
John's College, Cambridge, along with his 
: elder brother George (MAYOE, Admissions 
| to St. John's, pt. ii. p. 50), under Ralph 
I Sanderson, a north-countryman and fellow 
j of the college. He was elected a scholar, 
| and subsequently (30 March 1680) fellow of 
j his college, on the foundation of Dr. Ashton, 
dean of York, to whom he has recorded his 
sense of gratitude as one to whom he was 
indebted for ' the few comforts ' he after- 
wards enjoyed in life. Horace Walpole 
(Corresp. with Cole, iv. 114) observes, 'that 
it would be preferable to draw up an ample 
character of Mr. Baker, rather than a life. 
The one was most beautiful, amiable, con- 
scientious : the other totally barren of more 
than one event.' During the time that he 
retained his fellowship, his pursuits afforded 
an admirable illustration of the uses which 
j such endowments, when rightly applied, are 
! capable of subserving. He was a model of 
j an able, high-minded, and conscientious scho- 
lar, his time and energies being mainly de- 
voted to antiquarian and historical research. 
Unfortunately he was a nonjuror, and as 
early as 1690 he resigned the living of Long 
Newton to which he had been presented by 
Lord Crewe, bishop of Durham. On the ac- 
cession of George I, the enactment of the 
abjuration oath brought the law to bear with 
renewed severity on non-compliers, and on 
21 Jan. 1716-7 Baker also was compelled to 
resign his fellowship a fate, observes Cole, 
which had already befallen ' many more 
worthy and conscientious men.' Dr. Jenkin, 



Baker 



Baker 



the master of St. John's, had himself been 
required to take the oath of allegiance on 
proceeding B.D., and had complied, although 
he had formerly professed the same principles 
as Baker. The latter, however, was possessed 
by the belief that Dr. Jenkiii could have 
screened him had he chosen to do so, and 
he continued long after to cherish feelings of 
dignified resentment. Baker, in fact, could 
never altogether overcome his sense of wrong 
at his ej ection, although the blow was consider- 
ably mitigated by the consideration shown 
him by the college authorities, and by the 
kindness of friends. He was permitted to 
retain his rooms in college, and continued to 
reside there as a commoner-master until his 
<leath. Among the fellows of St. John's Avas 
Matthew Prior, the poet : and according to 
Dr. Goddard, the writer of the life in the 
'Biographia Britannica' (p. 520), being in 
easy circumstances, Prior handed his fellow- 
ship dividend, as he received it, over to his 
friend Baker. This statement, however, is 
discredited by Masters (Life of Baker, p. 120), 
who states that Baker 'lived comfortably 
and much to his own satisfaction ' on an 
annuity of 40Z. a year which he inherited 
from his father (ibid. p. 39). 

Such were the circumstances under which 
the indefatigable scholar laboured on for 
some four-and-thirty years, during which 
period he acquired the well-earned reputa- 
tion of being inferior to no living English 
scholar in his minute and extended acquaint- 
ance with the antiquities of our national 
history. His friends and correspondents, 
among whom were Burnet, Fiddes, Kennet, 
Hearne, Strype, Archbishop Wake, Le Neve, 
Peck, Dr. Rawlinson, Dr. Ward, Ames, 
Browne Willis, Dr. Richardson, John Lewis, 
Humphrey Wanley, and Masters (his bio- 
grapher), represented the chief names in 
English historical literature in his day. To 
Wake, at that time dean of Exeter, he 
rendered material assistance in the com- 
pilation of his ' State of the Church,' although 
the work was conceived in a spirit diametri- 
cally opposed to the doctrines of the Angli- 
can party. Wake, in order to show his sense 
of "these services, afterwards offered to pre- 
sent any one of Baker's friends, whom the 
latter (being himself ineligible) might name 
to him, to a benefice of the value of 2007. 
per annum. Baker declined the offer, but 
asked the archbishop to present him with a 
copy of his ' State of the Church/ contain- 
ing corrections and additions in his own 
handwriting. To this request Wake acceded, 
and the volume is now in the possession of 
the university library at Cambridge. To 
' Burnet, Baker rendered similar service by 



forwarding a series of corrections and criti- 
cisms of the ' History of the Reformation.' 
It is not surprising that Burnet should have 
I felt himself unable to accept them all with- 
out some reservations ; but the following 
i entry by Baker in the third volume of his copy 
' of the ' History ' preserved in the university 
j library is creditable to both : ' Ex dono 
doctissimi auctoris, ac celeberrimi prsesulis 
Gilbert! episcopi Sarisburiensis. I shall 
always have an honour for the author's me- 
mory, who entered all the corrections I had 
made at the end of this volume. If any 
more are found they were not sent, for he 
suppressed nothing.' 

Baker himself aspired to write an ' Athense 
Cantabrigienses,' if not a history of the uni- 
versity, on the plan of Anthony Wood's well- 
known work relating to Oxford (Letter to 
Wanley, Harl. MSS. 3778) ; and with this 
design accumulated a great mass of materials, 
mainly from manuscript sources, which he 
transcribed into forty-two folio volumes. The 
sound judgment and scrupulous care shown 
in this collection impart to it an unusual 
value. The first twenty-three volumes, which 
he bequeathed to his friend Harley, Lord 
Oxford, are now in the Harleian collection 
in the British Museum ; volumes xxiv. to xlii. 
are in the university library at Cambridge. 
An index to the whole series was published 
in 1848 by four members of the Cambridge 
Antiquarian Society, and a ' Catalogue ' (of a 
far more elaborate character) of the contents 
of the Cambridge volumes, by Professor John 
E. B. Mayor, was published for the syndics 
of the University Press in 1867. The 'History 
of St. Johns College' in the former series 
(MS. Harl. 1039), by Baker himself, has been 
edited by Professor Mayor (1869) with ex- 
tensive additions and annotations, and the 
whole work stands unrivalled as a history of 
a single collegiate foundation, in accuracy, 
completeness, and general excellence. 

Baker also reprinted, with a valuable bio- 
graphical preface, Bishop Fisher's funeral ser- 
mon for the Lady Margaret, mother of King 
Henry VII (London, 12mo, 1708) ; a copy, 
with transcripts of his manuscript notes, is 
preserved in the Bodleian library, and has 
been printed by Dr. Hymers. But the 
work by which he earned his chief con- 
temporary reputation was published anony- 
mously ; this was his ( Reflections on Learn- 
ing,' a treatise which went through seven 
editions. In its main object it somewhat re- 
I sembled Dryden's i Religio Laici,' being de- 
j signed to enforce the insufficiency of the 
j human understanding and of science as guides 
S for the formation of belief and the conduct 
of life. The literary merits of the work, and 

c2 



Baker 2 

the manner in which it harmonised with the 
theological prejudices of the time, gained for 
it an amount of popularity which it scarcely 
merited, when we consider that its depre- 
ciatory estimate of the value of scientific 
research is derived from a survey of the 
subject in which Bacon is but faintly com- 
mended, the name of Locke entirely omitted, 
and the Copernican system referred to in con- 
temptuous terms (7th ed. pp. 104-9). '.We,' 
says Baker, in conclusion, * who know so 
little of the smallest matters, talk of nothing- 
less than new theories of the world, and vast 
fields of knowledge ; busying ourselves in 
natural inquiries, and flattering ourselves 
with the wonderful discoveries and mighty 
improvements that have been made in humane 
learning, a great part of which are purely 
imaginary, and at the same time neglecting 
the only true and solid and satisfactory know- 
ledge' (p. 285), 

Baker died somewhat suddenly on 2 July 
1740, having been seized with apoplexy and 
found insensible on the floor of his study. 
During his lifetime he had expressed the 
wish that he might be buried near the grave 
of the founder, to whose liberality he felt 
himself under so much obligation. His desire 
found its accomplishment, and he was in- 
terred near Dr. Ashton's tomb in the ante- 
chapel of the former chapel of St. John's 
College. Cole (MSS. xlix. 93) describes his 
funeral as 'very solemn, with procession 
round the first court in surplices and candles.' 

Baker was a grandson of Colonel Baker of 
Crooke, a staunch royalist, who distinguished 
himself in the civil war by his gallant de- 
fence of Newcastle against the Scots in 1639. 
A nephew of the antiquarian, George Baker, 
entered as a fellow commoner at St. John's 
only the day before his uncle's seizure. Few 
scholars have enjoyed a better reputation 
than Baker even among those who differed 
from them in opinion ; and his slender purse 
was ever open even to assist those with whose 
views he did not altogether sympathise. In 
imparting knowledge from his own great 
stores, he was equally unselfish ; and by 
Zachary Grey (a friend of Cole's), who col- 
lected the materials for his life, he is de- 
signated not only ' the most knowing in our 
English history and antiquitys,' but also 'the 
most communicative man living ' (Examina- 
tion ofNeafs History of the Puritans, ii. 62 n. ; 
see also FIDDES'S Life of Wolsey, p. 312). His 
generosity met with a certain return, and 
many of his friends were in the habit of pre- 
senting him with books, while he himself 
was an indefatigable collector. He subscribed 
to all antiquarian works, and procured sub- 
scribers. At his death the greater part of 



Baker 

bis collections came into the possession of 
the college, and the shelves of the college 
library were enlarged for their reception. 
Two large volumes of his letters to Hearne 
are in the Bodleian, and also some of his 
books. His letters to Strype are in the 
Cambridge University library, and the pub- 
lication of his whole correspondence is in 
contemplation by the Surtees Society. His 
notes on Wood's * Athense ' are incorporated 
in the edition by Bliss. Most of his books con- 
tain notes, sometimes of considerable value, 
in his own handwriting, a hand always recog- 
nisable by its size and great legibility. His 
sense of the wrong which he had experienced is 
left on lasting record, owing to his invariable 
practice of appending to his name on the 
blank leaf the words ' Socius ejectus.' There 
are portraits of Baker in St. John's College 
and in the Bodleian, the latter having been 
formerly in the possession of Lord Oxford. 

Baker's valuable manuscript collections 
have been largely utilised by Messrs. C. II. and 
Thompson Cooper in their successive works, 
the ' Annals of Cambridge,' the ' Athense 
Cantabrigienses,' and the ' Memorials of Cam- 
bridge.' The fact that his history of his own 
college was allowed to remain so long in ma- 
nuscript is probably to be attributed to the 
prejudices excited against him as a nonjuror, 
and, consequently, an opponent of all reli- 
gious tests. The college, however, early pro- 
cured a transcript (see MAYOR'S Pref. p. vi). 
The additions to the copy in the Cole manu- 
scripts are incorporated in the edition of 1869. 
Cole tells us that Dr. Powell (master of St. 
John's 1765-75), a violent, dogmatic man, 
could never listen with patience to any com- 
mendation either of the history or its author. 

[Marshall's Genealogist's Guide ; Lives (com- 
piled chiefly from materials collected by Zachary 
Grey) by Masters (Camb., 1784), by Nichols, 
Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, 
! v. 106-117 and index ; and by the author of the 
j Life in the Biographia Britannica ; Life by Horace 
j Walpole. Works, ii. 339 ; Index to Baker's History 
! of St. John's College, ed. J. E. B. Mayor ; 
! Brydges's Restituta, iv. 409 ; Freeman's Portrait 
| Pictures of St. John's College; Index to Eeliquise 
I Hearnianse.] J. B. M. 

BAKER, WILLIAM(1668-1732),bishop 

I of Norwich, was the son of William Baker, 
I vicar of Ilton, Somersetshire, where he was 
I born in 1668. He was educated at Crew- 
! kerne School, and entered at Wadham Col- 
! lege, Oxford, of which college he was first 
; fellow, and eventually became warden in 
l 1719. He was successively rector of St. 
I Ebbes, of Padworth, and of Blayden, all in 
! the diocese of Oxford. In 1714 he was col- 
lated to the archdeaconry of Oxford. In 




Baker 21 



Baker 



1723 he was promoted to the see of Bangor, 
whence in 1727 he was translated to Norwich. 
He held the rectory of St. Giles-in-the-Fields 
in commendam up to the time of his death, 
which occurred at Bath, 4 Dec. 1732. He 
was never married. During his brief tenure 
of the see of Bangor he managed to make 
his only brother treasurer of the church 
there, and his two nephews were provided 
for by being made registrars of the diocese 
of Norwich. Blomefield, the historian of 
Norfolk, who was ordained by him, gives the 
titles of four sermons which he printed ; one 
of them was published by special command 
of Queen Anne in 1710. He was chaplain 
in ordinary to George I. In the abbey church 
at Bath there is a monument to him with a 
fulsome epitaph. 

[Blomefield's Norf. iii. 595 ; Le Xeve's Fasti.] 

A. J. 

BAKER, WILLIAM (1742-1785), 
printer, was born at Reading in 1742, and 
was the son of William Baker, for more than 
forty years schoolmaster at that place, and an 
amiable and accomplished man. Even at 
an early age young Baker's close application 
to study injured his health. His father had 
hoped to devote him to the church, but 
being disappointed by Dr. Bolton, dean of 
Carlisle, who had promised to give the youth 
a university training, he apprenticed him 
to Mr. Kippax, a printer, of Cullum Street, 
London. Baker diligently applied himself 
to his calling, and still employed his lei- 
sure in self-improvement. The money earned 
by working overtime was spent in books. 
Before he was twenty-one years old his 
exertions produced severe illness. On the 
death of Kippax, Baker succeeded to his 
business, afterwards removing to Ingram 
Court, where he was in partnership with I 
John William Galabin. In 1770 he pub- j 
lished ' Peregrinations of the Mind,' a series | 
of twenty-three essays, after the style of 
the ' Rambler,' and upon such subjects as the i 
stage, love, happiness, war, patriot ism , cruelty, 
the unreasonable compliments paid to the 
ancients for their works, &c. It had always 
been his practice to note passages which struck 
his attention in the course of reading, and 
in 1783 he printed a little volume of short 
extracts, noticeable for beauty of language 
or elevation of thought, from a wide range 
of Greek and Latin authors. No special ar- 
rangement is observed, but the precision of 
the references gives the book a value usually 
absent in such compilations. He contributed 
some poetical pieces to the magazines, and is 
said to have written sermons for clerical 
friends. He was an excellent linguist and 



good classical scholar. His modesty and 
learning made him many friends among the 
leading antiquaries and men of letters of the 
day, including O. Goldsmith, Dr. Edmund 
Barker, James Merrick, Hugh Farmer, and 
Csesar de Missy. He left in manuscript a 
correspondence with another Reading worthy, 
Robert Robinson, author of ' Indices in Dion. 
Longinum, in Eunapium, et in Hierocleni ' 
(Oxon. 1772), besides many other letters 011 
points of Greek scholarship. A small un- 
finished treatise on abuses of grammatical 
propriety in ordinary conversation also re- 
mained imprinted. His limited but choice 
library of classical books ultimately became 
the property of Dr. J. C. Lettsom. 

About Christmas 1784 he suffered from 
over-exertion in Avalking, and after an illness 
of nine months died from ' an enlargement of 
the omentum' 29 Sept. 1785, in his forty- 
fourth year. He was buried in the vault of 
St. Dionis Backchurch, the parish in which 
he had lived when in London. A Latin in- 
scription to his memory was placed by his 
younger brother upon the family tomb in the 
churchyard of St. Mary, Reading. 

His works are: 1. * Peregrinations of the 
Mind through the most general and interest- 
ing subjects usually agitated in life, by the 
late W. Baker, printer. A new edition, to 
which is prefixed a biographic memoir of 
the author.' London, printed by the editor 
[Maurice], 1811, sm. 8vo. The first edition 
was in 1770, sm. 8vo. 2. < Theses Graecae et 
Latinse select ae.' Lond. in off. J. W. Galabin 
et W. Baker, 1783, sm. 8vo. 

[An anonymous biography by a friend first 
appeared in the Encyclopaedia Londinensis(1810), 
reprinted on a single 4to leaf as ' Original Anec- 
dotes of W. Baker' (n.d.), and reproduced in 
C. Coates's Hist, of Reading, 1802 ; Chalmers's 
Biog. Diet, and the memoir prefixed to the 1811 
ed. of the Peregrinations ; see also Nichols's Il- 
lustrations, ii. 666, viii. 498, 609, and his Lit. 
Anecdotes, iii. 715-6.] H. K. T. 

BAKER, Sm WILLIAM ERSKINE 

(1808-1881), general, and a distinguished 
engineer, was the fourth son of Captain 
Joseph Baker, R.N., and was born at Leitli 
in 1808. He was educated at the East India 
Company's military college at Addiscombe, 
and went out to India as a lieutenant in the 
Bengal engineers in 1826. He was promoted 
captain in 1840, and saw service in the first 
Sikh war. He led one of the attacking 
columns to the entrenchments at Sobraon, 
for which he was thanked in the despatch 
and promoted major. He was afterwards 
exclusively employed in the public works 
department, and was successively superin- 



Bakewell 



Bakewell 



tendent of the Delhi canals, superintendent a century spread themselves over every part 
of canals and forests in Scinde, director of of the United Kingdom and to Europe and 
the Ganges canal, consulting engineer to the America '(YoiJATT, 0/*>S$w/>,p.318),audthus 
government of India for railways, and secre- England ' had 2 Ibs. of mutton where there 
tary to the government of India in the pub- was only 1 Ib. before ' (Husbandry of Three 
lie works department. His services as a Celebrated Farmers, p. 15). Bakewell suc- 
civil engineer were very great, and he was ceeded in producing the Dishley cattle, called 
regarded as the greatest authority of his also the new Leicestershire long-horn, * a 
time on irrigation. His military promotion small, clean -boned, round, short -carcased, 
continued during his civil employment, and kindly-looking cattle, inclined to be fat ' 
he became lieutenant-colonel in 1854 and (CiJLLEY, Observations on Live Stock, p. 26), 
colonel in 1857. In 1857 he returned to , which ' the grazier could not too highly 
England, and in the following year was ap- value/ though l their qualities as milkers 
pointed military secretary to the India Office. | were greatly lessened ' (YoTTATT, On Cattle, 
But his knowledge was rather that of an p. 192) ; and he produced a breed of black 
engineer than a soldier, and in 1861 he be- horses, remarkable for their strength in har- 
came a member of the council of India, and ness on the farm, and for their utility in the 
in that capacity chief adviser to the home army. In this capacity of breeder, Bakewell, 
government on Indian engineering matters. ! in his desire to obtain the i barrel 'shape, was 
He was promoted major-general in 1865, j the first to carry on the trade of ram-letting 
colonel-commandant of the royal (late Ben- ' on a large scale, and he established a club, 
gal) engineers in 1871, and lieutenant-general the Dishley Society, for the express object 
in 1874 ; he was made a K.C.B. in 1870, and j of insuring purity of breed. Amongst his 
in 1875 he withdrew from public life. He own stock, prices rose with so much rapidity- 
retired to his seat in Somersetshire, and, that whereas in 1760 his rams were hired for 
after becoming general in 1877, died there on I a few shillings the season, by 1770 they 
16 Dec. 1881. Sir William Erskine Baker's fetched 25 guineas, and a few years later 
work in Scinde is particularly memorable ; j still he made 3,000/. a year by their hire, 
the great irrigation works which he carried j deriving in one year from one particular ram, 
out there have rendered Sir Charles Napier's known as ' Two-pounder,' 
conquest of real value, and, according to \ guineas. Measurements oJ 

were taken in 1770, and published as remark- 
able examples of careful breeding (NiCHOLS, 
Leicestershire, p. 759); a sketch of one of 
his sheep was taken by Schnebblie in 1790 
(ib. p. 763) ; and other sketches of his stock 
appear in Garrard's 'British Oxen,' and in 
Youatt 'On Cattle/ p. 196. In 1785 Bake- 
well exhibited a famous black horse for some 
months in London; the king, George III, 
had previously had it brought before him by 
Bakewell in the courtyard of St. James's 
Palace. Many of the present humane notions 
regarding animals were anticipated by Bake- 
well, his stock being treated with marked 
kindness, his sheep being ' kept as clean as 
race-horses, and sometimes put into body- 
clothes ' (THEOSBT, Views in Leicestershire, 
p. 411), and even his bulls were remarkable 
for obedience and docility. 

In Bakewell's experiments on feeding and 
housing stock he was as bold as in breeding. 
He stood first in the kingdom ' as an improver 
of grass-land by watering' (MAESHALL, Rural 
Economy of Midland Counties, i. 284 et seg.} ; 
he flooded his meadows, making a canal of a 
mile and a quarter in length, and was able 
by means of irrigation to cut grass four times 
a year (MONK'S Agricultural Report); he 
had methods, by double floors to his stalls, 
of collecting farm refuse and diluting it, in 



Captain Burton, have made ' the desert 
flourish like the rose.' 

[For Sir W. E. Baker's life and services con- 
sult the Times for 20 Dec. 1881; for the 
engineering works in Scinde see Capt. Burton's 
Scinde, or the Unhappy Valley.] H. M. S. 

BAKEWELL, EGBERT (1725-1795), 
grazier, was boru at Dishley, otherwise Dix- 
ley, and Dishley Grange, near Loughborough, 
Leicestershire, in 1725. His father, who had 
been born at the same place, was a farmer, 
renting a farm there of 440 acres ; and 
Robert Bakewell, having qualified himself 
for experiments in husbandry and cattle- 
breeding by visiting farms in the west of 
England and other parts of the country where 
various modes of procedure prevailed, took 
charge of the farm on the failure of his father's 
health, about the year 1755, and succeeded to 
the entire management of it on his father's 
death in 1760 (Gent. May. vol. Ixv. part ii. 
pp. 969, 970). He aimed 
better breed of sheep and 



as much as 1,200 
Measurements of his rams and ewes 



at 



obtaining a 
;n, believing 

' that you can get beasts to weigh where you 
want them to weigh, i.e. in roasting pieces 
and not boiling pieces' (YouNG, Farmers' 
Tour, 1771, pp. 102-35). He succeeded in 
producing the new Leicestershire breed of 
sheep, which ' within little more than half 



Bakewell 



Bakewell 



order to obtain liquid manure. On these 
accounts his farm was visited as a curiosity 
by all classes. All were shown the boats 
in which he carried some of his crops ; his 
wharf for these boats; his plan of conveying 
his turnips about the farm by water (in his 
own words, ' We throw them in, and bid 
them meet us at the Barn End ') ; his teams 
of cows instead of oxen; his collection of 
skeletons of animals, and of carcases of ani- 
mals (in pickle), to test where breeds varied 
in bone and flesh ; and, there being no inn 
near at hand, his visitors were hospitably 
entertained by him (Gent. May. vol. Ixiii. 
part ii. p. 792 et seq.). 

Bakewell died, unmarried, on 1 Oct. 1795, 
aged 70, and was buried at Dishley, where, 
however, no monument was erected to him 
(NICHOLS). His nephew, Honeybouru, suc- 
ceeded to his farm, which maintained its 
reputation for some years ; but though the 
name and recollection of the new Leicester- 
shire cattle will never be lost, the breed itself 
has completely passed away (YOTJATT, On 
Cattle, p. 208), and the first expenses of 
Bakewell's experiments would appear to have 
exceeded his profits, for he was bankrupt in 
November 1776 (Gent. May. xlvi. 531). 

[European Magazine, vol. xxviii. ; Chalmers's 
Biog. Diet.; The Husbandry of Three Celebrated 
British Farmers, Messrs. Bakewell, Arbuthnot, 
and Ducket, by the secretary to the Board of 
Agriculture (Young), 1811; British Husbandry, 
1834 ; Humphry Davy's Lectures, p. 321, where, 
however, Davy is mistaking Bakewell for the sub- 
ject of the succeeding article; Annual Eegister, 
1771, pp. 104-10; Royal Agricultural Journal, 
iv. 262, vi. 17, viii. 2, xvi. 223, xvii. 479, xxiii. 
73.] J. H. 

BAKEWELL, ROBERT (1768-1843), 
geologist, born in 1768, was not of the family 
of the preceding llobert Bakewell, to whom, 
however, he was known, and with whom he | 
has sometimes by error been identified. He 
records that he was asked by the Countess 
of Oxford ' whether he was related to the 
Mr. Bakewell who im-ented sheep ' (Intro- 
duction to Geology, 5th edition, pp. 402 and 
403, note], and he replied that there was no 
connection between them. There is no evi- 
dence as to his parentage, though it is probable j 
he was one of the Bakewells of Nottingham, [ 
quakers and wool-staplers of that city (Ob- 
servations on Wool, appendix, p. 133). Bake- 
well, as a schoolboy, amused himself with the : 
construction of telescopes (Phil. May. xlv. i 
299), and, being placed amongst wools in his j 
early life, submitted them to the microscope, j 
He afterwards speculated as to the effects of j 
soil and food upon them, and published his j 
Observations on Wool ' in 1808, at Wake- 



field, Yorkshire : thenceforth he devoted him- 
self to science. In 1810 he was in commu- 
nication with Kirwan, and investigated the 
j Cobalt Mine at Alderley Edge, Cheshire (see 
j his Description, &c., Monthly May. for Feb. 
! 1811). From 1811 onwards he lectured on 
; geology all over the country, exhibiting sec- 
i tions of rock formation and a geological map, 
the first then of its kind (Introduction to 
Gcoloyy, 5th edition, Preface, p. xii). In 1812 
: he was engaged in a controversy with John 
Farey and others (Phil. May. xl. 45, and xlii. 
116 and 121). In the same year he discovered 
i a fine scenite, in large blocks, whilst examining 
I Charnwood Forest (Gent. May. vol. Ixxxiii. 
part i. p. 81); and his mineralogical surveys 
: having taken him into Ireland, and up Cader 
i Idris, and into every English county except 
j one, Hampshire (Travels in the Tarentaise, 
i. 270), he brought out his ' Introduction to 
Geology ' in 1813, making its distinguishing 
feature the fact that he drew his illustrations 
from situations in our own island, accessible 
to his readers (Review in LOUDON'S May. of 
Nat. Hist. i. 353 et seq.). This work was a 
great success ; it came from ' a person whose 
name is undecorated with any appendages ' 
(Preface to 2nd edition, p. xi), and there was 
much novelty, at the time, about all geo- 
logical investigation, the Geological Society 
(of which Bakewell never was admitted a 
member) having only been formed late in 
1807. Bakewell was encouraged to esta- 
blish himself at 13 Tavistock Street, Bed- 
ford Square, as gjological instructor; and 
he continued his mineralogical surveys, in 
company with his pupils and alone, till he 
had again travelled 2,000 miles, when he 
brought out a second edition of his work in 
1815. This was translated into German by 
Miiller at Friburg, and it was followed by an 
1 Introduction to Mineralogy ' in 1819. Mean- 
while Bakewell was examining the coalfield 
at Bradford (Trans. Geol. Soc. ii. 282); he 
was inventing a safety furnace for preventing- 
explosions in coal mines (Phil. May. 1. 211) ; 
and he was publishing his ' Observations on 
the Geology of Northumberland and Durham ' 
(ib. xlv. 81 et seq.}, and his ' Formation of 
Superficial Part of Globe ' (ib. pp. 452-9), 
with some refutations of a charge against 
him of plagiarism (ib. pp. 219 and 297). Be- 
tween 1820 and 1822 Bakewell was travelling 
in the Tarentaise, the Graiau and Pennine 
Alps, in Switzerland, and Auvergne ; and in 
1823 published his ' Travels/ so described in 
the sub-title, in two volumes, with illustra- 
tions, some of which were by his wife. These 
'Travels,' undertaken for geological study, 
yet full of humour and personal detail, caused 
a theological attack upon Bakewell by Dr. 



Balam 



Balcanquhall 



Pye Smith ( Vindication of Citizens of Geneva 
from Statements, &c., 1825). Continuing his | 
scientific investigations, Bakewell published 
his ' Salt ' (Phil Mag. Ixiii. 86, reprinted in 
' Silliman's American Journal,' x. 180) ; his 
' Lava at Boulogne ' (Phil. Mag. Ixiv. 414) ; 
his ' Thermal Waters of the Alps ' (ib. iii. 14, 
also reprinted in Silliman, xx. 219) ; his 
* Mantell's Collection of Fossils ' at Lewes 
(Mag. Nat. Hist. iii. 9) ; and a third edition 
of his ' Geology ' in 1828, immediately re- 
printed in America. At that date Bakewell 
had settled at Harnpstead, where his garden 
afforded him the opportunity of writing on 
the action of the ' Pollen of Plants ' (Mag. 
Nat. Hist. ii. 1), and where he prepared the 
following scientific papers : ' Organic Life,' 
1831 (Phil. Mag. ix. 33, appearing also in 
Froriep's 'Notizen,' xxx. col. 134); ' Gold 
Mines in United States,' 1832 (Mag. Nat. 
Hist. v. 434) ; and ' Fossil Elephants in Nor- 
folk,' 1835 (ib. ix. 37). A fourth edition of 
the ' Geology ' was issued in 1833, which pro- 
voked a criticism from Professor Sedgwick 
(Geol. Trans, iii. 472, 1835); it reached a 
fifth edition in 1838, and still has its readers 
and supporters of its theories. Bakewell died 
at Downshire Hill, Hampstead, on 15 Aug. 
1843, aged 76 (Annual Register, 1843). 

A list of Bakewell's fugitive productions 
is in the * Royal Society's Catalogue of Sci- 
entific Papers,' 1867, p. 165, but it is in- 
correct. Three of the articles enumerated, 
all three on * Niagara,' are by one of the geo- 
logist's sons, also a Robert Bakewell. The 
error is curious, because the geologist himself 
introduces this son to the scientific world in 
1830, in the preface to the first of the three 
papers in question (Mag. Nat. Hist. iii. 117). 
Robert Bakewell the younger became a resi- 
dent at New Haven, America, whence he 
dated his second and third papers, 1847 
and 1857. Another of the geologist's sons, 
Frederick C. Bakewell, wrote * Philosophical 
Conversations,' 1833, and ' Natural Evidences 
of a Future Life/ 1835, both of which passed 
through several editions. 

[Poggendorff 's Biographisch - litterarisches 
Handworterbuch ; Donaldson's Agricultural Dic- 
tionary ; and the authorities cited in the article.] 

J.H. 

BALAM, RICHARD (ft. 1653), mathe- 
matician, was the author of ' Algebra, or the 
Doctrine of composing, inferring, and resolv- 
ing an Equation ' (1653). There seems to be 
nothing original in this work but a multitude 
of terms which have perished with their in- 
ventor. The following sentence may be worth 
quoting: 'It seems probable to" me that 
quantity is not the true genus of number; 



but that measure and number, magnitude and 
multitude, quantity and quotity, are two 
distinct species of one common genus.' 
[Algebra, preface, cf. p. 15.] F. Y. E. 

BALATINE, ALAN (ft. 1560), is men- 
tioned by Edward Hall in the list of the 
English writers from whose works he com- 
piled his ' Chronicle.' Pits on this account 
classes him as an Englishman, but, according 
to Dempster, he was of Scotch origin, and, 
after studying privately, went to Germany, 
where he completed his education, and also 
taught in the gymnasiums. He wrote ' De 
Astrolabio,' ' De Terrse Mensura,' and l Chro- 
nicon Universale.' Dempster states that he 
flourished about 1560, but as Hall's ' Chro- 
nicle' was published in 1542, Balatine must 
have written his ' Chronicon Universale ' at 
least twenty years before 1560. He died in 
Germany. 

[Pits, De Anglise Scriptoribus, p. 825 ; 
Dempster's Hist. Ecc. Gent. Scot. (1627), p. 100 ; 
Tanner's Bibl. Brit. p. 66.] 

BALCANQUHALL, WALTER (1548- 
1616), presbyteriau divine, derives his sur- 
name originally from lands in the parish of 
Strathmiglo, Fifeshire. It is nearly certain 
that Walter was of the 'ilk' of Balcanquhall, 
and that he was born there according to 
his age at death in 1548 (cf. Sibbald's ' List 
of the Heritors' (1710) in History of Fife, 
appendix No. 2). 

Our earliest notice of him is that he was 
entered as ' minister of St. Giles, Edin- 
burgh,' on Whit Sunday 1574, when we learn 
that ' he w r as desyrit by other towns and 
large stipend promist,' but ' yet he consented 
to stay and accept what they pleased.' At 
this time he is described in James Melville's 
'Diary' (p. 41, Wodrow Society) as 'ane 
honest, upright hearted young man, latlie 
enterit to that menestrie of Edinbruche' 
[Edinburgh]. He was elected to the chap- 
laincy of the Altar called Jesus, 20 Nov. 
1579. Having preached a memorable ser- 
mon, mainly directed against the influence 
of the French at court, 7 Dec. 1580, he was 
called before the privy council on the 9th, 
and ' discharged.' He attended the Earl of 
Morton while in prison under condemnation, 
2 June 1581. When James VI of Scotland 
devised his scheme of re-establishing 'the 
bishops ' in Scotland, he found Balcanquhall, 
along with James Lawson, Robert Pont, and 
Andrew Melville, and their like-minded 
brethren, in active opposition. On the calling 
together of the estates of the realm in 1584, 
the king sent an imperative message to the 
magistrates of Edinburgh ' to seize and im- 



Balcanquhall 



Balcanquhall 



prison any of the ministers who should ven- 
ture to speak against the proceedings of the 
parliament.' But Balcanquhall (along with 
James Lawson) preached fearlessly against 
the proposals ; and along with Pont and 
others took his stand at the cross while the 
heralds proclaimed the acts passed by the sub- 
servient parliament, and publicly ' protested 
and took instruments' in the name of the 
' kirk ' of Scotland against them. The sermon 
was delivered on 24 May. A warrant was 
issued, and Balcanquhall and Lawson fled 
to Berwick-on-Tweed (MELVILLE, Diary, 
p. 119). 

The storm blew over, though his house in 
Parliament Square was given to another in 
the interval. On his return to Edinburgh, a 
house formerly occupied by Durie was given 
to him (1585). On 2 Jan. 1586 he preached 
before the king ' in the great kirk of Edin- 
burgh ' [St. Giles] when the sovereign ' after 
sermon rebuikit Mr. Walter publiclie from 
his seat in the loaft [gallery] and said he 
[the king] would prove there sould be 
bishops and spiritual! magistrate endued 
with authoritie over the minestrie ; and that 
he [Balcanquhall] did not his dutie to con- 
demn that which he had done in parliament ' 
(MELVILLE, Diary, p. 491). In this year 
(1586) he is found one of eight to whom was 
committed the discipline of Lothian by the 
general assembly. A larger house, which 
had been formerly occupied by his colleague 
"Watson, was assigned to him 28 July 1587, 
and his stipend augmented. He was ap- 
pointed to attend the coronation of Queen 
Anne, 17 May 1590. For some years he seems 
to have been wholly occupied with his pulpit 
and pastoral work. In 1596, however, his 
bold utterances again brought him into con- 
flict with the sovereign ; but a warrant having 
again been issued, again he escaped this time 
to Yorkshire, after being ' put to the horn ' as 
a fugitive. He appears to have been absent 
from December 1596 to April or May 1597. 
In May 1597 he resigned his 'great charge ' 
of St. Giles in order to admit of new paro- 
chial divisions of the city. In July he was 
permitted to return, and was chosen 'mi- 
nister ' of Trinity College Church, to which 
he was admitted 18 April 1598. He was 
the friend and companion of the Rev. Robert 
Bruce, and bribes were tendered him in vain 
to get him to ' fall away ' from Bruce. On 
10 Sept. 1600 he was once more in difficul- 
ties, having been called before the privy 
council for doubting the truth of the Gowrie 
conspiracy. f Transported ' by the general 
assembly to some other parish, 16 May 1601, 
he was afterwards allowed to return to 
Trinity College (19 June), and he was in the 



general assembly of 1602. In conjunction 
with Robert Poiit, he again took his stand 
at the cross, and publicly protested in name 
of the ' kirk ' against the A r erdict of assize 
finding the brethren who met in general as- 
sembly at Aberdeen guilty of treason. Later, 
for condemning the proceedings of the gene- 
ral assembly in 1610 he was summoned before 
the privy council and admonished. He ceased 
preaching on 16 July 1616 from a disease in 
his teeth, and died 1 4 Aug. following, in the 
sixty-eighth year of his age and forty-third 
of his ministry. 

He married Margaret, a daughter of James 

i Marjoribanks, merchant ; in right of whom 

j he had become 'burgess and good brother' of 

i the city (15 Feb. 1591). They had three 

sons, Walter [see BALCANQUHALL, WALTEK, 

1586 P-1645], Robert, minister of Tranent, 

and Samuel, and a daughter Rachel. 

[Reg. Assig. Presby. ; Edinburgh Counc. Reg. ; 
Hew Scott's Fasti Ecclesise Scoticanse, i. pt. i. 
5-6, 31; Brace's Sermons ; Balfour's Historical 
Works ; Sterens's Mem. of Heriot ; Boke of the 
; Kirke; Crauford's Univ. of Edinburgh; Murray's 
Life of Rutherford.] A. B. Q-. 

BALCANQUHALL, WALTER, D.D. 

(1586 P-1645), royalist, son of the Rev. 
Walter Balcanquhall [q. v.], who steadfastly 
opposed episcopacy, was born in Edinburgh 
'about 1586' the year of his father's ' re- 
buke ' by King James. Convinced, it has 
been alleged, by the arguments in favour of 
bishops maintained by the sovereign, he pro- 
ceeded to the university of Edinburgh with 
a purpose ultimately to take orders in the 
; church of England. In 1609 he graduated 
' M.A. He afterwards removed to Oxford, 
entering at Pembroke College. He passed 
B.D., and was admitted a fellow on 8 Sept. 
1611. He was appointed one of the king's 
chaplains, and in 1617 he received the 
mastership of the Savoy, London. In 1618 
James sent him to the synod of Dort. His 
letters from that famous synod, which were 
addressed to Sir Dudley Carleton, are pre- 
served in John Hales's ' Golden Remains.' 
Before proceeding to Dort the university of 
Oxford conferred upon him the degree of 
D.D. In March 1624 he obtained the deanery 
of Rochester, and in 1639 he was made 
dean of Durham. The ' Calendars of State 
Papers ' from 1625 onward reveal him as a 
pushing suppliant for offices and dignities. 
On the death of the celebrated George Heriot 
on 12 Feb. 1624, it was found that Balcan- 
quliall was one of the three executors of his 
will and was assigned the most responsible 
part in founding the hospital which was to 
bear the royal jeweller's name, Balcanquhall 



Balcarres 



Balchen 



drew up the statutes in 1627, and, it is uni- 
versally conceded, discharged the weighty 
trust imposed on him with integrity and 
ability. 

In 1638 he revisited his native country, as 
chaplain to the Marquis of Hamilton, the 
royal commissioner. Balcanquhall was ac- 
cused of shiftiness and treachery in his con- 
duct towards ; the people ' who were con- 
tending earnestly for their religious rights. 
He was the undoubted author of an apolo- 
getical narrative of the court proceedings 
under the title of ' His Majestie's Large De- 
claration concerning the Late Tumults in 
Scotland' (1639). On 29 July 1641 he and 
others of kin with him were denounced by 
the Scottish parliament as ' incendiaries.' j 
He was afterwards ' hardly entreated ' by ' 
the dominant puritan party, and was one of 
the ' sufferers ' celebrated by Walker in his 
' Sufferings.' He retreated to Oxford and 
shared the waning fortunes of the king. He 
died at Chirk Castle, Denbighshire, on Christ- 
mas day 1645, whilst the echoes of Naseby 
were in the air. Sir Thomas Middleton 
erected a ' splendid monument ' to him in j 
the parish church of Chirk. 

[Dr. Stevens's History of George Heriot's Hos- 
pital ; Wood's Athense (Bliss), iii. 180, 839; 
Walker's Sufferings, pt. ii. 19; Anderson's Scot- 
tish Nation; The two Sermons'of 1634 on Psalm 
cxsvi. 5, and S. Matt. xxi. 13.] A. B. Gr. 

BALCARRES, COUNTESS OP. [See 
CAMPBELL, ANNA.] 

BALCARRES, EAKLS OF. [See LIND- 
SAY.] 

BALCHEN, SIR JOHN (1670-1744), 
admiral, was born, according to local tradi- 
tion and an anonymous inscription on his 
picture, ' of very obscure parentage, 4 Feb. 
1669-70, at Godalming, in Surrey ; ' but he 
himself, in a memorial to the admiralty, dated 
12 June 1699, related all that is really certain 
of his early history. ' I have served in the 
navy,' he said, 'for fourteen years past in 
several stations, and was lieutenant of the 
Dragon and Cambridge almost five years, 
then had the honour of a commission from 
Admiral Neville in the West Indies to com- 
mand the Virgin's prize, which bears date 
from 25 July 1697, and was confirmed by 
my lords of the admiralty on our arrival in 
England. I continued in command of the 
Virgin till September 1698, then being paid 
off, and never at any time have committed 
any misdemeanour which might occasion my 
being called to a court martial, to be turned 
out or suspended.' He was asking for the 
command of one of the small ships employed 



on the coast of Ireland; but it was fully 
eighteen months before he was appointed to 
the Firebrand for the Irish station. In De- 
cember 1701 he was turned over to the Vulcan 
fireship, was attached to the main fleet under 
Sir George Rooke on the coast of Spain, and 
was with it at the capture or burning of the 
French and Spanish ships at Vigo, 12 Oct. 
1702. It is uncertain whether' the Vulcan 
took any active part in the burning, but 
Balchen brought home the Modere prize of 
56 guns. A few months later, February 
1702-3, he was appointed to the Adventure, 
44 guns, and continued in her for the next 
two years, cruising in the North Sea and in 
the Channel, and for the most part between 
Yarmouth and Portsmouth. On 19 March 
1704-5 he was transferred to the Chester, 
and towards the end of the year was sent 
out to the Guinea coast. He returned home 
the following summer, and continued cruising 
in the Channel and on the Soundings, where, 
on 10 Oct. 1707, he was one of a small 
squadron which was captured or destroyed 
by a very superior French force under Forbin 
and Duguay-Trouin. The Chester was taken, 
and a year later, 27 Sept. 1708, when Balchen 
had returned to England on parole, he was 
tried by court-martial and fully acquitted ; 
the decision of the court being that the 
Chester was in her station, and was engaged 
by three of the enemy, who laid her on 
board, entered many men, and so forcibly got 
possession of the ship. He was, however, 
not exchanged till the next year, when, in 
August 1709, he was appointed to the Glou- 
cester, a new ship of 60 guns then fitting at 
Deptford. On 8 Oct. he had got her round 
to Spithead, and wrote that he would sail in 
a few days ; but he had scarcely cleared the 
land before he again fell in with Duguay- 
Trouin (26 Oct., in lat. 50 10' N.), and was 
again captured. He was therefore again tried 
by court-martial for the loss of his ship 
(14 Dec. 1709), when it appeared from the 
evidence that the Gloucester was engaged 
for above two hours with Duguay's own ship, 
the Lis, 74 guns, another firing at her at the 
same time, and three other ships very near 
and ready to board her. She had her fore- 
yard shot in two, so that her head-sails were 
rendered unserviceable, and had also received 
much damage in her other yards, masts, sails, 
and rigging. The court was therefore of 
opinion that Captain Balchen and the other 
officers and men had discharged their duties 
very well, and fully acquitted them. It may 
be added that the French sold the Gloucester 
to the Spaniards, and that for many years she 
was on the strength of the Spanish navy 
under the name of Conquistador. 



Balchen 



Balchen 



Within a few months after his acquittal 
Balchen was appointed to the Colchester, 
48 guns, for Channel service. He continued 
in her, between Portsmouth, Plymouth, and 
Kinsale, for nearly five years, and in Febru- 
ary 1714-15 was transferred to the Diamond, 
40 guns, for a voyage to the West Indies and 
the suppression of piracy. His orders were 
to stay out as long as his provisions would 
last, or he could get others cheap at Jamaica. 
He came home in May 1716, and whilst lying 
at the Nore waiting for orders was involved in 
a curious difficulty with a custom-house officer 
who desired to search the ship, but would 
show no authority and was exceedingly in- 
solent. Balchen put him in irons as an im- 
postor, but released him on the representation 
of the master, who seemed to have some know- 
ledge of the fellow. Balchen was afterwards 
called on for an explanation, and wrote a 
somewhat lengthy and very amusing account 
of the whole affair, which began with a bowl 
of punch on the quarter-deck, round which 
the captain, the master, the surgeon, the 
stranger, and the stranger's friend sat and 
drank and quarrelled (Calendar of Treasury 
Papers, 22 Nov. 1716). 

Immediately on paying off the Diamond 
Balchen was appointed to the Orford guard- 
ship in the Medway, and continued in her 
till February 1717-18, when he commissioned 
the Shrewsbury, 80 guns, and in her accom- 
panied Sir George Byng to the Mediterranean. 
On arriving on the station, Vice-admiral 
Charles Cornwall, till then the commander- 
in-chief, put himself under Byng's orders, 
hoisted his flag on board the Shrewsbury, 
and was second in command in the battle off 
Cape Passaro, 31 July (BALCHEN'S Journal, 
Log of the Shrewsbury). The Shrewsbury 
returned to England in December, and in the 
following May Balchen was appointed to the 
Momnouth, 70 guns, in which ship he accom- 
panied Admiral Sir John Norris to the Baltic 
in the three successive summers of 1719, 1720, 
and 1721. Between the years 1722 and 1725 
he commanded the Ipswich guardship at Spit- 
head, and in February 1725-6 was again 
appointed to the Momnouth, and again went 
for the then yearly cruise up the Baltic, in 
1726 with Sir Charles Wager, and in 1727 
with Sir John Norris. He was afterwards, 
in October 1727, sent out as part of a rein- 
forcement to Sir Charles Wager at Gibraltar, 
then besieged by the Spaniards, but came 
home in the following January, when the 
dispute had been arranged. On 19 July 1728 
he was promoted to be rear-admiral, and in 
1731 went out to the Mediterranean as second 
in command under Sir Charles Wager, with 
his flag on board the Princess Amelia. It 



was a diplomatic pageant rather than a naval 
expedition, and the fleet returned home in 
December. In February 1733-4 he was ad- 
vanced to be vice-admiral, and commanded 
a squadron at Portsmouth for a few months. 
In 1740 he had again command of a squadron 
of six sail of the line, to look out for the 
Spanish homeward-bound fleet of treasure- 
ships, which, however, escaped by keeping 
far to the north, making Ushant, and then 
creeping to the south well in Avith the coast 
of France, whilst the English squadron was 
looking for them broad off Cape Finisterre. 
In August 1743 Balchen was promoted to be 
admiral of the white. He commanded for a 
few months at Plymouth ; but in the follow- 
ing April he was appointed to be governor of 
Greenwich Hospital, and was knighted. The 
appointment was considered as an honourable 
retirement from the active list, and in addi- 
tion to its emoluments a pension of 600/. a 
year on the ordinary estimate of the navy 
was settled on him during life (13 April, 
Admiralty Minute) ; but on 1 June he was 
restored to his active rank as admiral of the 
white. A large fleet of store-ships on their 
way to the Mediterranean was blockaded in 
the Tagus by a powerful French squadron 
under the Count de Eochambeau. Balchen 
was ordered to relieve it, and, with his flag- 
on board the Victory, sailed from St. Helen's 
on 28 July. Rochambeau was unable to 
oppose a force such as Balchen commanded ; 
he drew back to Cadiz, whilst Balchen con- 
voyed the store-ships to Gibraltar, saw them 
safely through the straits, and started on the 
return voyage. In the chops of the Channel 
his fleet was caught in a violent storm, on 
3 Oct. ; the ships were dispersed, but, more 
or less damaged, some dismasted, some leak- 
ing badly, all got into Plymouth or Spithead, 
with the exception of the Victory. She was 
last seen in the early morning of 4 Oct., and 
nothing was ever positively known as to her 
fate, whether she foundered at sea, or whether, 
as was more commonly believed, she struck 
on the Caskets. It was said that during the 
night of 4-5 Oct. her guns were heard by the 
people of Alderney, but even that was doubt- 
ful. Her maintop-mast was washed ashore 
on the island of Guernsey (Voyages and 
Cruises of Commodore Walker [1762, 12mo], 
p. 45). The admiral, Sir John Balchen, her 
captain, Samuel Faulknor, all her officers 
and men, and an unusual number of volun- 
teers and cadets, ' sons of the first nobility 
and gentry in the kingdom,' being in all, it 
was estimated, more than eleven hundred 
souls, were lost in her. A gift of 500/. and 
a yearly pension of the same amount was 
immediately (27 Nov.) settled on the admiral's 



Bald 



Baldock 



widow, Dame Susan Balchen, and a monu- 
ment to his memory was erected at the public 
cost in Westminster Abbey. His portrait, 
by Sir Godfrey Kneller, and bearing the in- 
scription above referred to, is in the Painted 
Hall at Greemvich. He had one son, George, 
a captain in the nary, who died in command 
of the Pembroke in the West Indies, in 
December 1745. 

[Official Letters and other Documents in the 
Public Record Office; Charnock's account (Biog. 
Nav. iii. 155), more especially of the early part 
of Balchen's career, is very imperfect and inac- 
curate : Lediard's Naval History (under date).] 

J. K. L. 

BALD, ALEXANDER (1783-1859), 
poetical writer, was born at Alloa, 9 June 
1783. His father was for a long time en- 
gaged in superintending coal works in the 
neighbourhood, and was the author of the 
'Corn Dealer's Assistant,' for many years 
an indispensable book for tenant-farmers 
in Scotland. A brother, Robert, attained 
some eminence as an engineer. Alexander 
was from an early age trained for commerce, 
and for more than fifty years conducted 
business at Alloa as a timber-merchant and 
brick-manufacturer. Throughout his life he 
devoted much of his leisure to literature, and 
was the friend and patron of many literai'y 
men in Scotland. He was among the first 
to acknowledge the merits of the poems of 
James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, and paid 
him a visit many years before he had obtained 
general recognition as a poet. He established 
a Shakespeare Association in his native town, 
and at its annual celebrations secured the 
presence of eminent men of letters. To the 
' Scots Magazine,' at the beginning of this 
century, Bald was a regular poetical contri- 
butor ; but his poems show a very thin vein 
of poetical sentiment. One of them, ' The 
Lily of the Vale,' has been erroneously at- 
tributed to Allan Ramsay. Bald died at 
the age of 76, at Alloa, in 1859. 

[Rogers's Century of Scottish Life, p. 237 ; 
Rogers's Modern Scottish Minstrelsy, v. 34.1 

S. L. L. 

BALDOCK, RALPH DE (d. 1313), 
bishop of London and lord chancellor, whose 
early history is unknown, first appears in 1271 
as holding the prebendal stall of Holborn, in 
which Robert Burnel, Edward I's great chan- 
cellor, had preceded him. This disposes of 
Godwin's assertion that he was educated 
at Merton College, Oxford, which was not 
founded till 1274. His influence and ability 
must have been considerable, for he obtained 
the highest preferment in his diocese. In 1276 



he was collated to the archdeaconry of Middle- 
sex ; became dean of St. Paul's in 1294 ; and 
was elected bishop of London in 1304. Three 
canons, who had been deprived by the arch- 
bishop during the vacancy of the see, ap- 
pealed to the pope to declare the election 
void owing to their exclusion, but the bishop- 
elect won his cause at Rome, and was conse- 
crated at Lyons in 1306. Though he does 
not appear to have spent his life at court or 
in the ministerial ofiices, he attracted the 
attention of Edward I, who nominated him 
lord chancellor in April 1307. The king's 
death followed in July, and Baldock was at 
once removed by Edward II at the instiga- 
tion of the favourite Gaveston. His position 
and character marked him out as one of the 
ordainers forced by the parliament of 1310 
on the king for the better regulation of his 
household. But he took little part in public 
affairs, preferring the duties and pastimes of 
a churchman. He wrote a history of Eng- 
land, and collected the statutes and customs 
of St. Paul's, works which existed in the 
sixteenth century, but are now lost. St. 
Paul's Cathedral was at this time being re- 
built and enlarged, and its new lady chapel 
was built by Baldock. He began it while 
he was yet dean, continued it as bishop, be- 
queathed money for its completion, and in 
it he was buried, after his death in 1313, 
1 under a goodly marble, wherein his por- 
traiture in brass was curiously represented.' 

[Wharton's Hist, de Episc. Lond. pp. 108-12 ; 
Godwin de Prsesul. ; Newcourt's Repertorium ; 
Rot. Pat. et Fin. temp. Ed. I ; Foss's Judges of 
England, iii. 220-3.] H. A. T. 

BALDOCK, ROBERT DE (d. 1327), 
lord chancellor, first appears in the records 
as obtaining a grant of the royal rights over 
a manor in Surrey in 1287. As he held a 
stall in St. Paul's whilst his namesake [see 
BALDOCK, RALPH DE] was yet bishop of Lon- 
don, it maybe inferred that they were related. 
Admitted to the prebend of Holy well in 1312, 
he obtained the archdeaconry of Middlesex 
two years later. But his attention was fixed 
on the court rather than on the church, which 
was looked upon by many clever adventurers 
at this time as a mere stepping-stone to 
ministerial greatness. Most of them, reading 
the signs of the times, were opposed to the 
government of Edward II. Baldock, on the 
contrary, was blinded to future dangers by 
the prospect of immediate aggrandisement. 
Soon after he became archdeacon he was 
permanently employed about the court, and 
grew wealthy by the gift of pluralities. Yet 
he never succeeded in obtaining a bishopric. 
In 1322, that of Winchester falling vacant, 



Baldock 



Baldock 



Edward II bade his agent at the papal court 
demand it for Baldock, but the agent secured 
the papal nomination for himself, and three 
years later, in the case of Norwich, the king's 
candidate was again thwarted by the pope's 
favourite, "William de Ayreminne [q. v.]. 
Ministerial offices were more at the king's 
disposal, and in 1320 he made Baldock 
his privy seal ; in 1323 he was one of the 
negotiators of a thirteen years' truce with 
Scotland ; and soon after his return from 
the north he obtained the lord chancellor- 
ship. Together with the De Spencers he 
now exercised the greatest power and in- 
curred the fiercest hate. Their position was 
critical. The queen sought to use the popu- 
lar feeling to get rid of a husband who neg- 
lected her, and of ministers whom she could 
not control. The French king seized this 
moment of weakness to demand the personal 
homage of Edward for his foreign posses- 
sions. The ministers dared not let Edward 
go, yet dared not anger Charles, and, failing 
to bribe the French envoys to conceal the 
object of their mission, they hit upon the 
fatal policy of letting the queen and her 
son cross over and satisfy the French king. 
Having gathered a force abroad, she returned 
in 1326 to find the people ready to assist her 
in overthrowing the government. She pro- 
claimed the De Spencers and Baldock ene- 
mies of the realm. As they fled westward 
with the king, the Londoners w r recked their 
houses. At Bristol the elder De Spencer 
was taken and beheaded, the hiding-place of 
the other fugitives in Wales was revealed by 
a sufficient bribe, Edward was forced to ab- 
dicate, and the younger De Spencer shared 
his father's fate. The death of Baldock was 
equally desired by the victorious party, but 
ins orders protected him from a legal execu- 
tion. He was handed over to Bishop Orlton 
of Hereford [see ADAM OF ORLTON], a minis- 
terial churchman more able and more un- 
scrupulous than himself. In February 1327 
lie was confined in this bishop's house in 
London, and the mob was allowed, or even 
incited, to break in and drag the prisoner with 
violence and cruelty to Newgate, where he 
shortly afterwards died of his ill-treatment. 

[Chronicles of Adam of Murimuth,Trokelowe, 
and Walsingham, Eolls Series ; Rot. Glaus, et 
Pat. temp. Ed. II ; Newcourt's Repertorium, 
p. 78 ; Foss's Judges of England, ii. 222-5.] 

II. A. T. 

BALDOCK, SIR ROBERT (d. 1691), 
judge, son and heir of Samuel Baldock of 
Stanway, in Essex, bore the same arms as 
Robert de Baldock [q. v.], lord chancellor 
in Edward II's reign. Entering as a stu- 



dent at Gray's Inn in 1644, he was called 
to the bar in 1651. There appears to be 
: no contemporary allusion to his early pro- 
I fessional career beyond Roger North's men- 
I tion of him in connection with a ' fraudulent 
conveyance managed by Sir Robert Baldock 
1 and Femberton,' the chief justice, which he 
thinks ' Baldock had wit and will enough to 
; do ' (NORTH'S Life of Lord Guilford, 223). 
In 1671 he was recorder of Great Yarmouth, 
and was knighted on the king's visit to that 
town. In 1677 he took the degree of serjeant, 
and was autumn reader to his inn of court ; 
and on the accession of James II he became 
one of the king's Serjeants. The only event 
of any importance in which he is known to 
have taken a part was the trial of the seven 
bishops, in which he was one of the counsel 
for the king. His principal argument, in a 
tedious irrelevant speech, is that the reasons 
given by the bishops for not obeying the 
king are libellous, inasmuch as 'they say 
they cannot in honour, conscience, or pru- 
dence do it ; which is a reflection upon the 
prudence, justice, and honour of the king in 
commanding them to do such a thing ' (State 
Trials, xii. 419). 

This argument seems to have commended 
him so strongly to the king that within a 
week he was promoted to a seat in the 
King's Bench, two of the judges, Sir John 
Powell and Judge Holloway, being removed 
in consequence of having expressed opinions 
in favour of the accused bishops (SiR J. 
BRAMSTO^'S Autobiography, 311). The re- 
volution which took place before the be- 
ginning of next term drove the new judge 
from the bench before he had time to render 
himself liable to the condemnation which in 
the next reign fell on so many of his fellow 
judges, of whom no less than six were ex- 
cepted from the act of indemnity in conse- 
quence of their assistance to James II in his 
unconstitutional proceedings (Stat. of Realm, 
vi. 178). 

^ The remaining three years of Sir Robert's 
life were spent in obscurity. He died on 
4 Oct. 1691, and was buried at Hockham in 
Norfolk, in the parish church of which is a 
monument erected by him to his only son, 
Robert, who was killed in a naval battle in 
1673. His first wife was Mary, the daughter 
of Bacqueville Bacon (third son of Sir Nicholas 
of Redgrave), and one of the three co-heir- 
esses of her brother Henry, who was lord of 
the manor of Great Hockham. She having died 
in 1662, he married again, but the name of 
his second wife is not known (BLOMEFIELD'S 
Norfolk, i. 312, 314). 

[Foss's Judges of England, and works cited 
above.] G. V. B. 



Baldred 



Baldwin 



BALDRED, or BALTHERE (d. 608?), 
saint, was a Northumbrian anchorite of the 
sixth century, the details of whose life are 
entirely mythical. Alban Butler gives 608 as 
the date of his death. He is said to have been 
suffragan of Eentigern of Glasgow, but all the 
localities connected with his cultus are in 
Lothian. Baldred was one of the island saints 
more common in Celtic than in English hagio- 
logy. His favourite place of retirement was 
the Bass Rock in the Firth of Forth. The 
special scenes of his teaching and miracles 
are reputed to be the three villages of Ald- 
hame, Tyningham, and Prestonne .; and when 
on his death the three churches importuned 
for his body, they found that Providence had 
supplied each place with a corpse of the holy 
man. Baldred's feast-day is 6 March. Another 
Baldred, or Baltherus, who was a hermit 
of Durham, flourished about a century later, 
and after such miracles as walking on the 
sea died in 756. Mr. Skene connects the two 
Baltheres together, and regards the later as 
the right date of the saint's death. 

[Acta Sanctorum Ord. Benedic. 6 March ; 
Forbes's Kalendar of Scottish Saints; Dictionary 
of Christian Biography; Skene's Celtic Scotland, 
iii. 223.] T. F. T. 

BALDRED (/. 823-825), king of Kent, 
during the dissensions which weakened 
Mercia after the death of Cenwulf, en- 
deavoured to make Kent independent of that 
kingdom. He seems to have been on good 
terms with Archbishop Wulfred, who was a 
Kentishman, and who had himself carried on 
a long dispute with the Mercian king about 
the rights of his church. Baldred's kingdom 
fell before Ecgberht. He was chased from 
Kent by a West-Saxon army led by ^Ethel- 
wulf, the king's son, Ealhstan, the bishop of 
Sherborne, and the ealdorman Wulfheard, 
and fled ' northwards over the Thames.' At 
the moment of his flight he granted Mailing 
to Christ Church, Canterbury, in the hope, 
it may be, of prevailing on the archbishop to 
espouse his cause. After his deposition Kent 
was held as a sub-kingdom by sethelings of 
the West-Saxon house, until it was finally 
incorporated with the rest of the southern 
kingdom on the accession of yEthelberht to 
the throne of W^essex. 

[Anglo-Saxon Chron. sub an. 823 ; Kemble's 
Codex Dipl. ccxl. ; Hadclan and Stubbs, Councils, 
&c., iii. 557; Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 190 n., 
256.] W. H. 

BALDREY, JOSHUA KIRBY (1754- 
1828), engraver and draftsman, practised both 
hi London and Cambridge between 1780 and 
1810, working both in the chalk and dot 



manners. Many of his works were printed 
in colours. He exhibited portraits at the 
Royal Academy in 1793 and 1794. Among 
his best works are : ' The Finding of Moses,' 
after Salvator Rosa, 1785; t Diana in a 
Landscape,' after Carlo Maratti ; ' Lady Raw- 
don/ after Reynolds, 1783 ; and some subjects 
after Penny and Bunbury. His chief work, 
however, is from the east window of King's 
! College Chapel, Cambridge, which he drew 
and engraved, and then finished highly in 
colours. He published ' A Dissertation on 
the Windows of King's College Chapel, Cam- 
; bridge ' (Camb. 1818, 8vo), from which it 
i appears he was engaged on an engraving of 
| one of the south windows. Baldrey died in 
I indigence at Hatfield Wood Side, Hertford- 
shire, 6 Dec. 1828, leaving a widow and 
| eleven children totally unprovided for. 

[Cooper's Annals of Cam bridge, iv. 559 ; Red- 
grave's Diet, of Artists ( J 878).] T. C. 

BALDWIN (d. 1098), abbot and phy- 
I sician, was a monk of St. Denys, and was 
| made prior of the monastery of Liberau, 
1 a cell of St. Denys, in Alsace. When Ed- 
ward the Confessor refoimded the monastery 
of Deerhurst and gave it to St. Denys, Bald- 
win was appointed prior of this new pos- 
session of his house. He was well skilled 
in medicine, and became the king's phy- 
sician. On the death of Leofstan, abbot 
of St. Edmund's, in 1065, Edward caused 
the monks to elect Baldwin as his successor. 
The new abbot received the benediction at 
Windsor, in the presence of the king, from 
the Archbishop of Canterbury, for his house 
claimed to be exempt from the jurisdiction of 
the bishop of Elmham, in whose diocese it 
lay. The king further showed his regard for 
the new abbot by granting him the privilege 
of a mint. Baldwin became one of the phy- 
sicians of the Conqueror, and his skill made 
him a favourite with the king, Avho enriched 
his house with grants of land. He had oc- 
casion to exert his influence with the king 
to the utmost, for Herfast, who was made 
bishop of Elmham in 1070, contemplated the 
removal of his see to St. Edmund's, and as- 
serted his authority over the abbey. Bald- 
win stoutly rejected his claim, and obtained 
leave from the king to lay the matter before 
the pope. He journeyed to Rome in 1071, 
taking with him some of the relics of St. 
Edmund. The fact that two Englishmen, 
one the prior and the other a chaplain of his 
house, accompanied Baldwin on this journey, 
shows that at St. Edmund's, iinlike some' 
other monasteries, the French abbot lived on 
friendly terms with his English monks. Alex- 
ander II received Baldwin graciously. He 



Baldwin 



Baldwin 



ordained him priest with his own hands, in- 
vested him with the ring and staff, and sent ; 
him home with a privilege which confirmed the 
exemption of his house. Although Laiifranc 
was a monk he was an archbishop, and he | 
was therefore opposed to the claims of exemp- | 
tion from episcopal jurisdiction, which were \ 
made by many monasteries. Accordingly he 
did not interfere to check the attempts of 
Herfast against St. Edmund's. In spite of 
the papal privilege, Herfast renewed these , 
attempts, and offered to give the king a large 
sum of money if he would allow the case to \ 
be tried. Hearing that the privilege of his 
predecessor was thus disregarded, Gregory ! 
VII wrote a letter to Lanfranc in 1073, re- ' 
preaching him for his reniissness in the mat- , 
ter, charging him to restrain Herfast from any 
further attempts against the liberty of the 
abbey, and warning the king not to yield to 
the persuasions of the bishop. A temporary 
victory is said to have been granted to Bald- j 
win by the interposition of St. Edmund. As j 
Herfast was riding through a wood a thorn j 
pierced one of his eyes. The bishop was in 
danger of losing his sight altogether. In his | 
pain and misery he Avas advised to entreat 
the abbot, whom he had injured, to cure him. 
He accepted the advice and went to St. Ed- 
inuud's. Baldwin saw his opportunity, and 
took care to obtain his fee before he took the 
case in hand. He held a chapter, to which 
he invited certain great men who happened 
to be in the neighbourhood, and caused the 
bishop to renounce his claim before the whole 
assembly. When Herfast had humbly con- 
fessed his sin and received absolution, Bald- 
win began to treat his eyes, and in a short 
time effected their cure. Before long, how- 
ever, the bishop renewed his attempts. Lan- 
franc, by command of the king, held a great 
court to inquire into the matter. The pro- 
ceedings w r ere conducted in the English 
fashion. The men of nine shires heard the 
pleadings, and their voices declared that the 
abbot's claim was good. The bishop suc- 
ceeded in carrying the case to the king's 
court, where, in 1081, it was heard before all 
the chief men of England. Baldwin put the 
charters of his house in evidence, and pleaded 
moreover that neither he nor his predecessors 
had received the benediction from, the bishop. 
The court decided in his favour, and the king- 
issued a charter confirming to the abbey the 
exemption granted by his predecessors. 

Baldwin's medical skill brought him many 
patients, some even from Normandy. He was 
kind and hospitable to all who came to him. 
As physician to the court he followed the 
king to Normandy. While there he was 
often made the bearer of royal messages, and 



acted as physician to the nobles, as well as 
to the king and his queen. At the sugges- 
tion and with the assistance of William, he 
pulled down the church of his abbey, which 
had only been finished in 1032, and built 
another in its place after a more splendid 
fashion. Of this church William of Malmes- 
bury declared that there was none to com- 
pare with it in England for beauty and size. 
Baldwin's church lived on until the dissolu- 
tion. The stately tower leading into the 
abbey yard, on a line with the west front of 
the church, which now serves as the tower 
of the church of St. James, is doubtless part 
of his work. The building was finished in 

1094, and the abbot obtained leave from Wil- 
liam Ilufus for its consecration and for the 
translation of the body of the saint. Before 
long, however, the king capriciously with- 
drew his license for the consecration. A 
report was set abroad that the body of St. 
Edmund was not really in the possession of 
the abbey, and it was suggested that the king 
should seize the rich work of the shrine and 
apply the profits to the payment of his mer- 
cenaries. It chanced that while such things 
were being said Walkelin, bishop of Winches- 
ter, and Rauulf, the king's chaplain, after- 
wards bishop of Durham, came to the town 
of St. Edmund on the king's business. 
Baldwin took advantage of their visit to ar- 
range a solemn translation. In spite of the 
opposition of Bishop Herbert of Losing, the 
successor of Herfast, the ceremony was per- 
formed with great splendour in the presence 
of the bishop of Winchester on 29 April 

1095. Baldwin, according to Florence of 
Worcester, died * in a good old age ' in 1097. 
According to the l Annals ' of his house his 
death did not take place until the next year. 

[Annales S. Edmundi, Heremanni Mir. S. Ead- 
mundi, in Ungedvuckte Anglo-Normannische 
Gesehichtsquellen, ed. Liebermann ; Jaffe's 
Momunenta Greg. 49, 50 ; Epp. Lanfr., ed. Giles, 
20, 22, 23, 26; Epp. Anselm., Migne, ii. 4; 
Will. Malmesb. de Gestis Pontif. ii. ; Flor. Wig. 
1097; Dugdale's Monast. iii. 99; Freeman's 
William Eufus, ii. 267.] W. H. 

BALDWIN or MOELES (d. 1100 ?) was 
the second son of Gilbert, count of Eu, who 
was a grandson of Richard the Fearless, 
and one of the guardians of the youth of 
William the Conqueror. On the murder of 
his father in 1040 Baldwin and his elder 
brother Richard, the ancestor of the house of 
Clare, were taken by their guardian to the 
court of Flanders for refuge. At the request 
of Baldwin of Flanders, Duke William, when 
he married Matilda, gave Baldwin, the son 
of Gilbert, the lordships of Moeles and Sap, 



Baldwin 



Baldwin 



and married him to Albreda, the daughter of 
his aunt. Baldwin was greatly enriched by 
the conquest of England. Besides lands in 
Somerset and Dorset, he had no less than 159 | 
estates in the county of Devon, where he held 
the office of sheriff.' On the fall of Exeter, 
in 1068, the king left him to keep the city, i 
and to complete the building of the castle. ! 
By his wife Albreda, Baldwin had three sons 
Richard, who was made earl of Devon by 
Henry I [see BALDWIN OF REDVEES], Robert, 
the lord of Brionne, and William ; and three 
daughters. He had also a natural son, Guiger, 
who became a monk of Bee. A Norman 
priest in 1101 beheld in a vision Baldwin 
and his brother, who had both died shortly . 
before, clad in full armour. 

[Will, of Jumieges, viii. 37 ; Orderic, 687, 694, 
510 ; Dugdale's Baronage, i. 254 ; Monasticon, ! 
v. 377.] W. II. 

BALDWIN (d. 1190), archbishop of 
Canterbury, was born at Exeter of poor . 
parents. He received an excellent education, ! 
both in secular and religious learning, and 
bore a high character. He took orders, and 
was made archdeacon by Bartholomew, 
bishop of Exeter. Monastic in his tastes, 1 
Baldwin disliked the state and business which 
surrounded him as an archdeacon. He re- j 
signed his office, and became a monk of the j 
Cistercian abbey of Ford in Devonshire, j 
He entered on his new life with ardour, and 
within a year was made abbot. His literary '. 
work was done either wholly, or at least for 
the most part, while he held that office. In 
1180 he was made bishop of Worcester. ! 
While Henry II was at Worcester in 1184, j 
a man of good family, named Gilbert of , 
Plumpton, was tried for forcibly carrying off 
an heiress, and was condemned to death. It j 
was generally believed that many of the ' 
charges brought against Gilbert were false, [ 
and were included in the indictment to secure ' 
his condemnation. Baldwin was strongly j 
urged to interfere to save him. He deter- 
mined to do so, but was only just in time. 
The rope was actually round Gilbert's neck, 
when the bishop galloped up and called to 
the executioners to loose him, saying that 
their work might not be done on that day, j 
for it was Sunday and a festival. A pardon : 
was afterwards obtained from the king. The | 
incident illustrates the bishop's character, 
which was at once wavering and impulsive. 
Baldwin was elected archbishop in the same 
year. His election was disputed ; for the 
monks of Christ Church chose the abbot of j 
Battle, while the bishops of the province | 
chose Baldwin. The monks refused to agree 
in the choice of the bishops, and proceeded to ; 



elect Theobald, cardinal-bishop of Ostia. The 
king interfered, and after some difficulty per- 
suaded the monks to choose the bishop of 
Worcester, on the express condition that the 
claim of the bishops to elect should be dis- 
allowed. It was probably during the course 
of this dispute that Baldwin was employed 
by the king in a negotiation with Rhys ap 
GrufTydd, prince of South Wales. The new 
archbishop is described by his friend, Giraldus 
Cambrensis, as a gloomy and nervous man, 
gentle, guileless, and slow to wrath, very 
learned and religious. This character, as 
Dr. Stubbs has shown (Epp. Cantuar., Introcl., 
Rolls Series), is perhaps not inconsistent with 
'the errors of temper, harshness, arbitrary 
severity, and want of tact ' which he mani- 
fested in the long dispute with his convent ; 
for he was weak of purpose and of an im- 
pulsive nature. His religious character is 
illustrated by the saying that, of the three 
archbishops, ' Avhen Thomas came to town, 
the first place to which he went was the 
court, with Richard it was the farm, with 
Baldwin the church.' Pope Urban III, who 
was his enemy, addressed him in a letter as 
'the most fervent monk, the zealous abbot, the 
lukewarm bishop, the careless archbishop/ 
As a simple monk Baldwin was fervent in 
spirit, and when he was invested with autho- 
rity he did not exercise it negligently, but in 
a way which was unwelcome to the pope. 

The privileges granted by the predecessors 
of Baldwin made the monks of Christ Church 
practically independent of the archbishop. 
Fresh dignity was conferred upon their con- 
vent by the martyrdom of St. Thomas. Over 
the large revenues of their church its titular 
ruler had no control. His claim on their 
obedience w r as disregarded, and he was looked 
upon by the chapter either as the instrument 
of their will, or as a stranger whose interests 
were different from their own. The house was 
no mere monastic foundation. The monks, 
as the congregation of the metropolitan 
church, cast off the bondage of monastic dis- 
cipline. Princely hospitality and luxurious 
living reigned within the monastery. Trains 
of sen-ants waited on the brethren and con- 
sumed the revenues of the house. While 
the archbishop had scanty means of reward- 
ing his clerks and officers, he saw the com- 
munity of which he was the nominal head 
indulging in laA'ish expenses. The inde- 
pendence of the convent was grievous to 
Baldwin as archbishop, and its luxury dis- 
gusted him as a Cistercian. When he was 
received by the monks, he expressed a hope 
that he and they would be one ' in the Lord.' 
His course of action was not such as was 
likely to promote unity. He determined to 



Baldwin 



33 



Baldwin 



raise a great collegiate church, in which he 
might provide for men of learning such as 
his nephew, Joseph the poet. The monks 
believed that he intended to supersede their 
house. Of the famous quarrel which arose 
on this matter a full and interesting account 
has been given by Dr. Stubbs in his intro- 
duction to the volume of Canterbury letters, 
which record each stage in the proceedings. 
A year after his enthronement Baldwin seized 
certain offerings (.cenia) paid to the convent. 
He decided on building a college for secular 
priests at Hakington, about half a mile from 
Canterbury. The monks appealed to Rome, 
and begged the kings of England and France 
to uphold their cause. Before long most of 
the princes, cardinals, bishops, and great 
monasteries of western Europe took one side 
or the other in the quarrel. The archbishop 
was upheld by Henry. He suspended the 
appellant monks, and refused to obey the 
papal orders commanding him to restore the 
prior, to discontinue his building, and to give 
up the property of the convent. When the 
pope issued a second mandate, Ranulf Glan- 
vill, the justiciar, forbade its execution. On 
the death of Urban the king openly adopted 
the cause of Baldwin. In 1188 two monks 
were sent to the archbishop, who had just 
come to England from Normandy to offer 
him the usual welcome on his return. With- 
out admitting them to his presence he ex- 
communicated them and seized their horses. 
The convent stopped the services of the 
church, and sent letters to Henry the Lion 
and Philip of Flanders, asking their help. 
On the other hand, Henry wrote to Pope 
Clement, declaring that ' he would rather lay 
down his crown than allow the monks to get 
the better of the archbishop.' The convent 
was kept in a state of blockade for eighty-two 
weeks. On the death of Henry II Baldwin 
tried to effect a reconciliation. He failed, 
and broke out into violent threats against 
the subprior. In order to reduce the con- 
vent to submission, he appointed to succeed 
the prior, who had died abroad, one Roger 
Norreys, who was wholly unfit for the post. 
King Richard visited Canterbury in Novem- 
ber 1189, and effected a compromise of the 
dispute. Baldwin gave up his college at 
Hakington, and deposed his new prior. On 
the other hand it was declared that the 
archbishop had a right to build a church 
where he liked, and to appoint the prior of 
the convent, and the monks made submission 
to him. In virtue of this agreement he ac- 
quired by exchange from the church of 
Rochester twenty-four acres of the demesne 
of the manor of Lambeth, and there laid the 
foundation of a new college. 

VOL. III. 



Meanwhile, in 1187, Baldwin made a lega- 
i tine visitation in Wales, a part of their pro- 
vince which none of the archbishops of Can- 
terbury had yet visited. The tidings having 
arrived of the^loss of Jerusalem and of the holy 
cross, Henry II held a great council at Ged- 
dington for the purposes of a crusade. There, 
1 11 Feb. 1188, Baldwin took the cross, and 
I preached for the cause with great effect. In 
, the Lent of that year the archbishop, accom- 
panied by Ranulf Glanvill and by Giraldus, 
the archdeacon of St. David's, made a tour 
through Wales, preaching the crusade. En- 
tering Wales by Hereford, he spent about a 
month in the southern and a week in the 
northern principality. At Radnor the cru- 
sading party was joined by Rhys ap Gruffydd 
and other noble Welshmen. The archbishop 
made this progress a means of asserting his 
metropolitan authority in Wales, for he per- 
formed mass in each of the cathedral churches 
' as a mark of a kind of investiture ' (Itin. 
Kamb. ii. 1 ; see also Introd. by Mr. Dimock 
to Giraldus Cambrensis, vi., R.S.). Vast 
crowds of Welshmen took the cross. A his- 
tory of the expedition was written by Giral- 
dus. The crusade was delayed by the quarrel 
! of Richard with his father. Soon after his 
j return from Wales Baldwin was sent by the 
king to pacify Philip of France, but was un- 
' successful in his mission. He was with the 
king during his last illness. He seems to have 
had considerable influence with Henry. In 
1185 he prevailed on him to release his queen. 
He now strongly exhorted him to confession. 
He forbade the marriage of John with the 
heiress of the Earl of Gloucester on the 
ground of their kinship, but his prohibition 
was disregarded. In 1189 he officiated at the 
coronation of Richard, and attended the coun- 
cil which the king held at Pipewell in that 
year. At this council Geoffrey, the king's 
brother, was appointed to the archbishopric 
of York. Baldwin asserted the rights of his 
see by claiming that the new archbishop 
should not receive ordination from any one 
save from himself, and appealed to the pope 
to uphold his claim. 

In March 1190 Baldwin set out on the cru- 
sade in company with Hubert, bishop of 
Salisbury, and Ranulf Glanvill. They parted 
with the king at Marseilles, as they went 
straight on to the Holy Land. They arrived 
at Tyre on 16 Sept., and at Acre on 12 Oct. 
During the illness of the patriarch, Baldwin, 
as his vicegerent, opposed the adulterous 
marriage of Isabel, the heiress of the king- 
dom, the wife of Henfrid of Turon, and Con- 
rad, the marquis of Montferrat, and excom- 
municated the contracting and assenting 
parties. The crusading army made an attack, 



Baldwin 



34 



Baldwin 



12 Nov., upon the camp of Saladin. Before 
the battle Baldwin, in the absence of the pa- 
triarch, absolved and blessed the host. Nor 
was he wanting in more active duties. He 
sent to battle two hundred knights and three 
hundred attendants who were in his pay, with 
the banner of his predecessor, St. Thomas, 
borne on high before them; while he, in 
company with Frederick of Swabia and Theo- 
bald of Blois, guarded the camp of the cru- 
saders. The excesses of the army weighed 
heavily on the spirit of the aged prelate. He 
fell sick with sorrow, and was heard to pray 
that he might be taken away from the tur- 
moil of this world ; l for,' said he, ' I have 
tarried too long in this army.' He died 
19 Nov. 1190. During his illness he appointed 
Bishop Hubert his executor, leaving all his 
wealth for the relief of the Holy Land, and 
especially for the employment of a body of 
troops to guard the camp. 

The works of Baldwin which have been 
preserved are a Penitential and some dis- 
courses in manuscript in the Lambeth library, 
of which a notice is given in Wharton's 
' Auctarium 'of Usher's ' Historia Dogmatica,' 
p. 407 ; two books entitled ' De Commenda- 
tione Fidei,' and ' De Sacramento Altaris,' 
and sixteen short treatises or sermons. 
While these works do not display any great 
learning, they prove that Baldwin had a wide 
acquaintance with the text of Scripture. The 
book on the ' Sacrament of the Altar ' was 
printed at Cambridge with the title, < Reve- 
rendissimi in Christo Patris ac Domini, Do- 
mini Baldivini Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi, 
de venerabili ac divinissimo altaris sacra- 
mento sermo. Ex prseclara Oantabrigiensi 
Academia, anno MDXXI. Finis adest feli- 
cissimus,' 4to. It is printed by John Siberch, 
who styles himself, in the dedication to 
Nicholas, bishop of Ely, 'primus utriusque 
linguae in Anglia impressor,' and is one of the 
earliest books known to have been printed at 
Cambridge (AMES, Typog. Antiq. ed. Her- 
bert, iii. 1412 ; BRTJNET, Manuel du Libmire, 
i. 624). Baldwin's works are contained in 
the 'BibliothecaPatrum Cisterciensium,'tom. 
v. 1662, from which they have been reprinted 
verbatim, with the remarkable error which 
makes Oxford the birthplace of Baldwin and 
the see of Bartholomew, by Migne in his 
* Patrologise Cursus Completus,' torn. cciv. 

[Epp. Cantuar. ed. Stubbs, R.S. ; G-esta Regis 
Henrici, ed. Stubbs, R.S. ; Eoger of Hoveden, ed. 
Stubbs, R.S. ; Ralph of Diceto; Gervase, Act 
Pontif. andChron.; Giraldus Cambrensis, De Sex 
Episc. vit., De rebus a se gestis, Itin. Kambriae, 
De Instruc. principum, i_vii, ed. Brewer and Di- 
mock, R.S. ; Richard of Devizes ; Roger of Wend- 
over ; Introductions to Memorials of Rich. I, by 



.Dr. Stubbs, R.S. ; Hook's Archbishops of Canter- 
bury, vol. ii.] W. H. 

BALDWIN OF CLAKE (Jl. 1141) was the 
youngest son of Gilbert Fitz-Richard, of the 
elder branch of the line of Gilbert, count of 
Eu, grandson of Richard the Fearless [see 
BALDWIN of Moeles, d. 1100]. His mother 
was perhaps Adeliza, daughter of the count of 
Claremont, though William of Jumieges does 
not mention him among her sons. The manor 
of Clare, from which Baldwin and others of 
his family took their name, was one of the es- 
tates held by his grandfather Richard in Suf- 
folk. Baldwin's father, Gilbert, received the 
grant of Ceredigion (Cardiganshire) from 
Henry I in 1107. On the death of Henry, 
Richard, the eldest brother of Baldwin, was 
slain, and his lands were harried by Morgan 
ap Owen. Stephen gave Baldwin a large 
sum of money to enable him to hire troops for 
the relief of the lands of his house. Bald- 
win, however, retreated without, as it seems, 
striking a single blow. When, in 1141, Ste- 
phen's army was drawn up before the battle 
of Lincoln, the king, because his own voice 
was weak, deputed Baldwin to make a speech 
to the host. The Arundel MS. of the ' His- 
tory of Henry of Huntingdon ' (twelfth or 
thirteenth century) contains an outline draw- 
ing of Baldwin addressing the royal army in 
the presence of the king. In this speech he 
set forth the goodness of the cause of Stephen 
and the evil character of his enemies, reviling 
Robert, earl of Gloucester, as having the 
heart of a hare a reproach which came 
singularly amiss from the speaker. In this 
battle, however, Baldwin fought bravely and 
received many wounds. He stood by the 
king to the last, and was taken prisoner with 
him. He was a benefactor of the abbey of 
Bee. Richard, earl of Striguil, the invader 
of Ireland, was his nephew. 

[GestaStephani, p. 12; Henry of Huntingdon, 
viii. 271-4, R.S. ; Orderic, 922; Will, of Ju- 
mieges, viii. 37; Giraldus Cambrensis, Itin. 
Kamb. ed. Dimock, p. 48 ; Brut y Tywysogion, 
105, 157; Dugdale's Baronage, i. 207; Monasticon, 
v. 1067.] W. H. 

BALDWIN OF REDVEES (d. 1155) was 
the eldest son of Richard, earl of Devon, the 
son of Baldwin of Moeles [q. v.]. He suc- 
ceeded his father in the earldom, in the lord- 
ship of Okehampton, and also, it is said, in 
the lordship of the Isle of Wight. From his 
residence in Exeter Castle he is usually styled 
earl of Exeter. On a report being raised 
of the death of Stephen in 1136, Baldwin, 
with the connivance of other barons, made a 
revolt. He began to oppress the city of Exe- 
ter. The citizens sent to the king for help, 



Baldwin 



35 



Baldwin 



and Stephen ordered 200 horse to march at 
once to their relief. Baldwin's men, having 
heard that the citizens had complained of 
them, sallied forth to take vengeance on them. 
They were defeated, and had scarcely taken 
shelter within the walls of the castle, when 
the king with the main body of his army en- 
tered the city. Baldwin had a strong gar- 
rison in the castle, and held it against the 
royal forces. The siege and defence were 
alike conducted with all the military skill of 
the time. During its progress Baldwin's gar- 
rison at Plympton surrendered to the king. 
His rich lands were harried, and his tenants 
all through Devonshire were brought to sub- 
mission. The blockade was strict, and want 
of water forced Baldwin to propose a capitu- 
lation. By the advice of the bishop of Win- 
chester Stephen at first refused to grant any 
terms to the rebels, and withstood a piteous 
appeal made to him by Baldwin's wife, Ade- 
liza. A large number, however, of the chief 
men of the king's own army were not dis- 
posed to allow him to take severe measures. 
Some had relatives within the castle, and 
some, though they were now fighting against 
Baldwin, had secretly counselled him to re- 
volt. In the spirit of that continental feu- 
dalism from which England had hitherto been 
saved by the firmness of the earlier Norman 
kings, they reminded Stephen that the gar- 
rison had never made oath to him as king, 
and that in taking up arms against him they 
were acting faithfully to their lord. Stephen 
yielded to their wishes, and allowed the gar- 
rison to come forth. Baldwin fled to the 
Isle of Wight, and prepared to carry on the 
rebellion. On hearing that the king was 
about to embark at Southampton to reduce 
him to obedience, he surrendered himself. 
He was banished and took shelter with Geof- 
frey, count of Anjou, by whom he was honour- 
ably received. At the instigation of the em- 
press he intrigued with the Norman lords, 
and raised up a revolt against Stephen in the 
duchy. He was taken prisoner by Ingelram 
-de Say in a skirmish before the castle of Ormes. 
In 1139 he landed with a strong force at 
Wareham, and held Corfe Castle against the 
king. After a long siege Stephen turned 
away from Corfe on hearing of the landing of 
Robert of Gloucester. Baldwin joined the 
empress, and was present at the siege of Win- 
chester in 1141. The earl was a great bene- 
factor of religious houses. He founded a 
priory of Austin canons at Bromere in Hamp- 
shire, and a Cistercian abbey at Quarrer, or 
Arreton, in the Isle of Wight. He caused 
the secular canons of Christ Church at Twyn- 
ham to give place to regular canons. He 
enriched the priory of Plympton, and gave 



his chapelry of St. James at Exeter, with its 
tithes and estates, to the monasteries of St. 
Peter at Cluny and of St. Martin-des-Champs. 
Baldwin died in 1155, and was buried in his 
monastery at Arreton with Adeliza his wife. 
He left three sons Richard, who succeeded 
him in his earldom ; William, called Vernon, 
and Henry ; and one daughter, named Had- 
wisa. 

[G-esta Stephani ; Henry of Huntingdon, 259, 
E. S. ; Gervase, 1340; Orderic, 916; E. de 
Monte, sub an. 1155; Dugdale's Baronage, 
i. 255 ; Monasticon, v. vi. ; Tanner's Notitia 
Monastica; Third Eeport of the Lords on the 
Dignity of a Peer, p. 177.] W. H. 

BALDWIN, GEORGE (d. 1818), mysti- 
cal writer, was born in the earlier half of the 
eighteenth century, but the exact date is un- 
certain. The place was probably London. 
The chief knowledge we have of him is gained 
from the prefaces to his works. He was a great 
traveller. We find him at Cyprus in 1760 ; 
thence he travelled to St. Jean d'Acre in 
1763. In 1768 he returned to England, and 
obtained leave to go as a free mariner to the 
East Indies, with the idea of exploring the 
connection between India and Egypt by the 
Red Sea. On the point of embarkation he 
received news from Cyprus of his brother's 
death, and was advised to return thither. 
He did not accomplish his purpose there 
till 1773, when he passed over into Egypt, 
and was at Grand Cairo in the time of 
Mehemed Bey, who told him, * If you bring 
the Indian ships to Suez, I will lay an 
aqueduct from the Nile to Suez, and you 
shall drink of the Nile water.' He then 
went to Constantinople, and made his plan 
known to Mr. Murray, his majesty's ambas- 
sador at that place, by whom it was favour- 
ably received. In 1774 he returned to Egypt 
and went to Suez, whence he accompanied the 
holy caravan on a dromedary to Cairo. His 
services there were accepted by the East 
India Company. He arrived in Alexandria 
in 1775, and succeeded in establishing a 
direct commerce from England to Egypt. 
Baldwin returned to England in 1781 hav- 
ing been plundered on the plains of Antioch 
by thieves and shot through the right arm 
in a destitute condition, and petitioning for 
justice. He then received a summons from 
Mr. Dundas to attend the India Board, and 
to present to it a memorial, entitled, in his 
works, ' Political Recollections.' On this his 
majesty's ministers sent him as a consul- 
general to Egypt. He entered on the func- 
tions of his office in Alexandria 18 Dec. 
1786. In 1796 Baldwin counteracted a 
public mission entrusted to Tinville, the 

D 2 



Baldwin 



Baldwin 



brother of Fouquier-Tinville, the notorious 
public accuser before the French revolution- 
ary tribunal, who arrived in Cairo expressly 
to inveigle the beys of Egypt into the designs 
of the French. About this time lie received 
an official letter that the office of consul in 
Egypt had been abolished as unnecessary 
four years before. ' The effect of this letter/ 
says Baldwin, 'was to depress me to such a 
degree as to bereave me of my strength, and 
of every faculty to attend to any earthly 
concern.' He left all his property behind 
him, and sailed on 14 March 1778, and on 
the 19th landed happily on the island of 
Patmos, in the grotto of the Apocalypse. 
From Patmos he went to Chisnie, the sepul- 
chre of the Turkish fleet, where the Greeks 
for five-and-twenty days came round him 
every night and danced the carmagnole. 
He went on to Trieste by Vienna, and then, 
disturbed by the battle of Marengo, retreated 
to Leghorn. He was there surprised by a 
party of republicans, and had just time to 
save himself on board his majesty's frigate, 
Santa Dorothea, with little more than a 
change of linen in his wallet. After a fort- 
night's cruise he landed at Naples, where he 
was requested by the English commander-in- 
chief to join them at Malta in the campaign 
of 1801. 

Whilst acting as consul-general Baldwin 
first turned his attention to what he calls 
magnetic influence. The cures effected by 
this in Egypt he declares to be many and 
marvellous. In 1789 he commenced ex- 
periments in it himself with remarkable 
success. The gifts of which he considered 
himself possessed were, he says, obtained 
from the hand of one Cesare Aveiia di Val- 
dieri, an extempore poet who had 'coursed 
and sung his carms {sic) over various re- 
gions of the Avorld, and at length imported 
under my roof in Alexandria on 23 Jan. 
1795. The gifts were obtained from Cesare 
in his magnetic sleep. Baldwin's Italian 
work, ' La Prima Musa,' is written in poor 
and ungrammatical Italian. It reads more 
like the raving of a maniac than a whole- 
some speculation on a subject of science. 
He presented a copy of it to the British 
Museum in 1802. Baldwin probably died 
poor. He speaks of his 'Legacy to his 
Daughter ' as the only property he had to 
leave her. 

Baldwin, during his long residence at 
Alexandria, after much observation of cases 
of the plague, proposed as beneficial for 
this hitherto incurable malady the rubbing 
of sweet olive oil into the skin. He com- 
municated his ideas to the Rev. Lewis de 
Pavia, chaplain and agent to the hospital 



called St. Anthony's at Smyrna, who, after 
five years' experience, pronounced it the 
most efficacious remedy he had known in 
the twenty-seven years during which the 
hospital had been under his management. 
One of the many ingenious observations 
made by Baldwin is that, amongst upwards, 
of a million of inhabitants earned off by the 
plague in Upper and Lower Egypt during 
the space of forty years, he could not discover 
a single oilman or dealer in oil. 

Baldwin was the author of some remark- 
able works and a few pamphlets. Amongst 
them are : 1. ' A Narrative of Facts relating 
to the Plunder of English Merchants by the 
Arabs, and other subsequent Outrages of the 
Government of Cairo in the course of the 
year 1779.' 2. ' Osservazioni circa un nuovo 
specifico contra la peste,' Florence, 1800. 
This has been translated into German. 3. ' Sur 
le Magnetisme Animal,' translated into. 
French, 1818. 4. A pamphlet 'Memorial 
relating to the Trade in Slaves carried on in 
Egypt,' Alexandria, 1789. 5. ' Political Re- 
collections relative to Egypt, containing 
Observations 011 its Government under the 
Mameluks ; its Geographical Position ; its 
intrinsic and extrinsic Resources ; its rela- 
tive Importance to England and France ; 
and its Dangers to England in the Possession 
of France ; with a narrative of the cam- 
paign in 1801,' London 1802, 8vo. 6. ' Phi- 
losophical Essays' (dedicated to Governor 
Johnstone, whom he addresses as his most 
honourable and most honoured friend), Lon- 
don, 1786, 8vo. 7. 'LaPrirna Musa Clio, r 
London, 1802. 8. 'La Prima Musa Clio, 
translated from the Italian of Cesare Avena 
di Valdieri by George Baldwin, or the Divine 
Traveller; exhibiting a series of writings 
obtained in the extasy of magnetic sleep/ 
3 vols. (London, 1810?), 8vo; vols. ii. and 
iii. have no title-page. 9. ' Tre Opere Dram- 
matiche prese nelle visioni di Dafni e con- 
catenate istoricamente nell' ordine die segue, 
cioe, II Trionfo di Melibeo, La Cipria Silene, 
e la Coronazione di Silene, scritte da Dafni 
ossia Timi Dafni cosi poeticamente divisato 
Arcade Pastore, essendo nell' estasi del sonno 
magnetico/ London, 1811, 4to, privately 
printed. 10. ' Mr. Baldwin's Legacy to his 
Daughter, or the Divinity of Truth in writ- 
ings and resolutions matured in the course 
and study and experience of a long life ' (in- 
cluding a series of writings obtained from 
the hand of Cesare Avena di Valdieri in 
the magnetic sleep), London, 1811, 4to. 

[Brit. Mus. Catal. ; Lowndes's Bibliog. Man. 
i. 102 : Watt's Bibl. Brit. ; Meyer's Grosses Con- 
versations-Lexikon ; Annual Eegister, xl. 402,. 
xxxv. 271.] J. M. 



Baldwin 



37 



Baldwin 



BALDWIN, JOHN (d. 1545), chief jus- 
tice of the common pleas, was a member of 
the Inner Temple, of which inn he was ap- 
pointed reader in the autumn of 1516, at 
Easter 1524, and again in the autumn of 1531, 
while he twice filled the office of treasurer, in 
1524 and 1530. In 1510 his name appears 
on the commission of the peace for Bucking- 
hamshire, with which county he was con- 
nected throughout his life, acting on commis- 
sions of gaol delivery and subsidy, and for the 
assessment of the values of church property 
which formed the basis of the ' valor eccle- 
siasticus ' of 1535. In 1520 he was a man of 
sufficient mark to be nominated on the sheriff 
roll, but w r as not selected by the king. In 
1529 he was joined in commission with the 
master of the rolls, the chief baron of the ex- 
chequer, two of the justices of common pleas, 
and other distinguished lawyers, to hear 
causes in chancery committed to them by Car- 
dinal Wolsey, then lord chancellor ; and in 
the following year, on the cardinal's fall, he 
was selected to hold inquisitions as to the 
extent of his property in Buckinghamshire. 
He sat in the House of Commons once, being 
burgess for Hindon, in Wiltshire, in the par- 
liament which met on 3 Nov. 1529, and con- 
tinued till 4 April 1536. On 13 April 1530 
he was appointed attorney-general for Wales 
and the Marches (which were then governed 
by the Princess Mary's council under the pre- 
sidency of the Bishop of Exeter), and also of 
the county palatine of Chester and Flint. He 
vacated these offices on the appointment of 
Richard Riche on 3 May 1532. His patent 
as serjeant-at-law is dated 16 Nov. 1531, but 
the title is given to him two months earlier 
in a commission of gaol delivery for Bedford 
Castle. Shortly after this promotion he ac- 
companied Sir John Spelman as justice of 
assize for the northern circuit, and was placed 
on the commission of the peace in Cumber- 
land, Northumberland, Westmoreland, and 
Yorkshire. He still, however, served on the 
commission of gaol delivery at Aylesbury in 
the same year. According to a manuscript 
copy of Spelman's ' Reports,' quoted by Dug- 
dale, he and Thomas Willoughby were the 
first serjeants-at-law who received the honour 
of knighthood. This was in Trinity term, 
1534. In the following year (19 April 1535) 
he was appointed chief justice of the common 
pleas, and almost the first cases in which he 
acted in a judicial capacity were the trials of 
the prior of the London Charterhouse, Bishop 
Fisher, and Sir Thomas More for treason. 
He also acted in the same capacity at the 
trials of Anne Boleyn and her companions, 
of Lord Darcy, and the ringleaders of the 
northern rebellion. 



He appears to have lived principally at 
Aylesbury, from which place two letters from 
him in the t Cromwell Correspondence ' in the 
Public Record Office are dated, and in his later 
years acquired a considerable estate in the 
county, consisting of the house and site of the 
Grey Friars at Aylesbury (Pat. 32 Hen. VIII, 

B';. 8), and the manors of Ellesborough and 
unrich, forfeited by the attainder of Sir 
Henry Pole and the Countess of Salisbury. 
According to an inquisition taken at Ayles- 
bury on 22 Dec. 1545 he died on 24 Oct. in 
that year, leaving as his next heirs Thomas 
Packington, son of his daughter Agnes 
whose husband, Robert Packington, M.P. 
or London, was shot in Cheapside in 1536), 
and John Burlacy, son of his daughter Pe- 
tronilla. In the pedigree in Harl. MS. 533 
the elder daughter is called Ann, and Foss 
gives her name as Katharine, on what autho- 
rity does not appear. He had also a son 
William, who married Mary Tyringham, but 
died in his father's lifetime. His widow be- 
came a lunatic shortly after his death. An 
extract from his will is given in the inqui- 
sition. 

[Calendar of State Papers, Hen. VIII, vols. 
i.-vii. ; Patent Eolls, 37 Hen. VIII, pt. ii. 7, 
and 38 Hen. VIII, pt. ii. 12; Baga de Secretis ; 
Reports of Deputy Keeper of Public Records, iii. 
App. ii. p. 237, and ix. App. ii. p. 162 ; State 
Trials, i. 387, 398 ; Dugdale's Origines Juridi- 
ciales, 137; Foss's Judges of England, v. 134.1 

C. T. M. 

BALDWIN, RICHARD, D.D. (1672?- 

1758), provost of Trinity College, Dublin, 
first became connected with the college by 
obtaining a scholarship in 1686. He was 
afterwards made a fellow, and on 24 June 
1717 was appointed provost. On his death, 
30 Sept. 1758, he bequeathed his fortune of 
80,000/. to the college. The will was dis- 
puted by certain persons in England who 
claimed to be his relatives ; but after sixty- 
two years' litigation the case was in 1820 
decided in favour of the college. His asso- 
ciates knew nothing of his nativity or parent- 
age ; but the claimants asserted that he was 
the son of James Baldwin, of Parkhill, near 
Colne, and that he was born in 1672 and 
educated at the grammar school at Colne, 
where he dealt a mortal blow to one of his 
schoolfellows, and on that account left Eng- 
land. A suggestion has also been made that 
he owed his promotion to the provostship to 
his relationship to some one of high influ- 
ence. There is a marble monument to his 
memory in Examination Hall. 

[Liber Hiberniae, ii. 123 ; Taylor's History of 
the University of Dublin, 248-51.] T. F. H. 



Baldwin 



Baldwin 



BALDWIN, THOMAS (1750-1820), was 
appointed city architect at Bath about the 
year 1775, and continued in that office till 
1800. Baldwin completed, upon an improved 
plan, the building of the new guildhall, which 
had been begun in 1768. He designed the 
Cross baths, the portico of the great pump 
room, and many other public and private 
buildings. Some time before 1796 he was 
made chamberlain of Bath. He had draw- 
ings prepared, which seem not t o have been 
published, of a Roman temple discovered 
near the king's bath in 1790. He died on 
7 March 1820, at the age of 70. 

[Diet, of Architectural Publication Society, 
1 853 ; Natte's Views in Bath, fol., London, 1806 ; 
Kedgrave's Diet, of English Artists.] E. E. 

BALDWIN, SIB TIMOTHY (1620- 
1696), civil lawyer, younger son of Charles 
Baldwin of Burwarton, Shropshire, was born 
in 1620. He became a commoner of Balliol 
College, Oxford, in 1635, and proceeded B. A. 
on 13 Oct. 1638, B.C.L. on 26 June 1641, and 
D.C.L. in 1652.* In 1639 he was elected 
fellow of All Souls' College, where he lived 
during the civil wars. As a royalist he was 
deprived of his fellowship by the parlia- 
mentary commissioners in 1648, but an appli- 
cation on his behalf to the wife of Thomas 
Kelsey, deputy-governor of the city of Oxford, 
accompanied by ' certain gifts,' secured his 
speedy reinstatement. He is mentioned by 
Wood in his autobiography (ed. Bliss, p. 
xxv) as joining in 1655 a number of royalists 
' who esteem'd themselves either virtuosi or 
wits ' in encouraging an Oxford apothecary 
to sell ' coffey publickly in his house against 
All Soules Coll.' At the restoration he was 
nominated a royal commissioner to inquire 
into the state of the university, was admitted 
principal of Hart Hall, now Hertford College 
(21 June 1660), and became a member of the 
College of Civilians (COOTE'S English Civi- 
lians, p. 84). He afterwards resigned his 
fellowship (1661), and was nominated chan- 
cellor of the dioceses of Hereford and Wor- 
cester. For twelve years, from 1670 to 1682, 
lie was a master in chancery (Foss's Judges, 
vii. 8). He was knighted in July 1670, and 
was then described as of Stoke Castle, Shrop- 
shire. In 1679-80 he is found acting as one 
of the clerks in the House of Lords, and 
actively engaged in procuring evidence 
against the five lords charged with a 
treasonable catholic conspiracy. He died 
in 1696. At the time he held the office of 
steward of Leominster (LTJTTRELL'S Brief 
Relation, iv. 93). 

Baldwin was the author of ' The Privileges 
of an Ambassador, written by way of letter 



to a friend who desired his opinion concern- 
ing the Portugal Ambassador,' 1654. This 
very rare tract treats of the charge of man- 
slaughter preferred in an English court 
against Don Pantaleone, brother of the Por- 
tuguese ambassador. Baldwin also translated 
into Latin and published in 1656 Lord Her- 
bert of Cherbury's ' History of the Expedition 
to Rhe in 1627.' The English original, which 
was written in 1630, was first printed in 
1870 by the Philobiblon Society. In 1663 
Baldwin edited and published ' The Juris- 
diction of the Admiralty of England asserted 
against Sir Edward Coke's " Articuli Aucto- 
ritatis " in xxii. chapter of his " Jurisdiction 
of Courts " by Richard Zouch, Doctor of the 
Civil Laws and late Judge of the High Court 
of Admiralty, 1663.' Baldwin contributed 
a brief preface to this work dated ' Doctors' 
Commons, 25 Feb. 1663.' 

[Athense Oxon. (ed.Bliss), iii. 241, 512, iv. 334; 
Fasti Oxon. i. 479, 500, ii. 3, 171 ; State Trials, 
vii. 1285, 1373, &c.; Martin's Archives of All 
Souls' College, 381 ; Burrows' Worthies of All 
Souls, 196, 216.] S. L. L. 

BALDWIN, WILLIAM (fl. 1547), a 
west-countryman, spent several years at Ox- 
ford in the study of logic and philosophy. 
He is supposed to be the William Baldwin 
who supplicated the congregation of regents 
for a master's degree in 1532 (Woor, Athence, 
i. 341). On leaving Oxford he became a 
corrector of the press to Edward Whit- 
church, the printer, who, in 1547, printed for 
him ' A Treatise of Morall Phylosophie, con- 
tayning the Sayinges of the Wyse,' a small 
black-letter octavo of 142 leaves. This book 
was afterwards enlarged by Thomas Paul- 
freyman, and continued popular for a cen- 
tury. In 1549 appeared Baldwin's ' Canticles 
or Balades of Salomon, phraselyke declared in 
Englyshe Metres,' which the author printed 
with his own hand from the types of Whit- 
church. The versification has more ease and 
elegance than we usually find in metrical 
translations from the Scriptures ; and the 
volume is remarkable for the care bestowed 
on the punctuation, a matter to which the 
old printers seldom paid the slightest atten- 
tion. During the reigns of Edward VI and 
Queen Mary, it appears that Baldwin was 
employed in preparing theatrical exhibitions 
for the court (COLLIER, Hist, of Eng. Dram. 
Poetry, i. 149, &c.) In 1559 he superintended 
the publication of the 'Mirror for Magi- 
strates,' contributing four poems of his own : 
(1) ' The Story of Richard, Earl of Cam- 
bridge, being put to death at Southampton ; ' 
(2) l How Thomas Montague, Earl of Salis- 
bury, in the midst of his glory was by chance 



Baldwin 



39 



Baldwin 



slain by a Piece of Ordnance ; ' (3) ' Story 
of William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, 
being punished for abusing his King and 
causing the Destruction of good Duke Hum- 
phrey ; ' (4) ' The Story of Jack Cade naming 
himself Mortimer, and his Rebelling against 
the King.' In the preface, Baldwin speaks 
of having been ' called to other trades of 
lyfe.' He is probably referring to the fact 
that he had become a minister and a school- 
master. Wood states that he took to clerical 
work immediately after leaving the uni- 
versity ; but this must be a mistake. In 
1560 he published a poetical tract (of the 
greatest rarity) in twelve leaves, 'The 
Funeralles of King Edward the Sixt ; where- 
in are declared the Causers and Causes of his 
Death..' On the title-page is a woodcut 
portrait of Edward. The elegy is followed 
by ' An Exhortation to the Repentaunce of 
Sinnes and Amendment of Life,' consisting 
of twelve eight-line stanzas ; and the tract 
concludes with an * Epitaph : The Death 
Playnt or Life Prayse of the most Noble and 
Vertuous Prince, King Edward the Sixt.' 
One of the rarest and most curious of early 
ludicrous and satirical pieces, ' Beware the 
Cat ' (1561), has been shown by Collier to 
be the work of Baldwin. The dedication is 
signed ' G. B.,' the initials of Gulielmus 
Baldwin ; and Mr. Collier quotes from an 
early broadside (in the library of the Society 
of Antiquaries) the following passage : 

Where as there is a book called Beware the Cat: 
The veri truth is so that Streamer made not that ; 
Nor no such false fabells fell ever from his pen, 
JSor from his hart or mouth, as knoe mani honest 

men. 
But wil ye glaclli knoe who made that boke in 

dede? 
One Wylliam Balclewine. God graunt him well to 



But the authorship is placed beyond all 
possible doubt by an entry in the Stationers' 
Registers, 1568-9, when a second edition was 
in preparation : ( Rd. of Mr. Irelonde for his 
lycense for pryntinge of a boke intituled 
Beware the Catt, by Wyllm Baldwin, iiijd.' 
The scene is laid in the office of John Day, 
the printer, at Aldersgate, where Baldwin, 
Ferrers, and others had met to spend Christ- 
mas. Personal allusions abound, and there 
are many attacks on Roman Catholics. The 
purpose is to show that cats are gifted with 
speech and reason ; and in the course of the 
narrative, which consists of prose and verse, 
a number of merry tales are introduced. Of 
Baldwin's closing years we have no record ; 
he is supposed to have died early in the 
Teign of Queen Elizabeth. 



Baldwin prefixed a copy of verses to Lang- 
ton's 'Treatise ordrely declaring the Prin- 
1 cipall Partes of Physick ' (1547). He is 
probably the author of ' A new Booke called 
The Shippe of Safegards, wrytten by G. B.' 
(1569), and a sheet of eleven eight-line 
stanzas : 

To warn the papistes to beware of three trees. 

God save our Queene Elizabeth. 
Finis qd. G. B., 

printed on 12 Dec. 1571, by John Awdelay. 
Wood ascribes to him ' The Use of Adagies ; 
Similies and Proverbs ; Comedies,' of which 
nothing is known. 

[Wood's Athense Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 341-3; 
Ritson's Bibliogr. Poet. p. 121 ; DiLdin's Typogr. 
Antiq. iii. 503, iv. 498 ; Collier's Hist, of Engl. 
Dram. Lit. i. 149, 154, new ed. ; Bibliogr. Ac- 
count, i. 43-7; Corser's Collectanea, i. 108-16, 
123-9.] A. H. B. 

BALDWIN or BAWDEN, WILLIAM 

(1563-1632.), Jesuit, was a native of Corn- 
wall. He entered Exeter College, Oxford, 
! on 20 Dec. 1577, studied in that university 
; for five years, and passed over to the Eng- 
; lish College of Douay, then temporarily re- 
1 moved to Rheims, where he arrived on 
31 Dec. 1582. The following year he pro- 
I ceeded to Rome, and entered the English 
i College there. He was ordained priest in 
: 1588, and served as English penitentiary at 
I St. Peter's for a year. His health failing in 
! Rome, he was sent to Belgium, where he 
I entered the Society of Jesus in 1590, and 
i was advanced to the dignity of a professed 
father in February 1602. He was professor 
of moral theology at Louvain for some time. 
Having been summoned to Spain at the close 
of the year 1594 or early in 1595, he was 
captured by the English fleet, then besieging 
Dunkirk, and sent as a prisoner to England; 
but the privy council, being unable to dis- 
cover anything against him, set him at liberty. 
He remained for six months in England, 
living with Mr. Richard Cotton at War- 
blington, Hampshire, where he rendered great 
assistance to the catholic cause. Called 
thence to Rome, he was for some time mi- 
nister at the English college, under Father 
Vitelleschi, the rector. He next went to 
Brussels (about 1599 or 1600), where he suc- 
ceeded Father Holt as vice-prefect of the 
English mission. This important post he 
held for ten years. His zeal gave such offence 
to the privy council, that, although he had 
never left Belgium, they proclaimed him a 
traitor, and an accessory in the Gunpowder 
plot with Fathers Garnett and John Gerard, 
and further accused him of having formerly 



Baldwin 



Baldwyn 



treated with Frederick Spinola about the j 
Spanish invasion. In 1610 Baldwin had to j 
make a journey on business to Rome, during 
which, when passing the confines of Alsace 
and the Palatinate, he was apprehended by 
the soldiers of the Elector Palatine, Frede- 
rick VI, not far from the city of Spires. As 
the elector knew that he would be conferring 
a great favour upon King James, he kept 
him in close custody in various public prisons, 
and then sent him to England escorted by a 
guard of twelve soldiers, travelling some- 
times on horseback and sometimes in a cart, 
bound with a heavy chain from the neck to 
the breast, where it was turned and wound 
round his entire body, ' being twice as long 
as would have been required to secure an 
African lion.' As if that did not suffice, they 
hung another chain behind him, eighteen 
feet long, to carry which it was necessary to 
have an assistant, whom in jest they called 
his train-bearer. To loosen or tighten these 
chains, four men, with as many keys, pre- 
ceded him. They allowed him to have only 
one hand at liberty for the purpose of con- 
ducting food to his mouth, never both hands 
at once, nor was he permitted the use of a 
knife and fork, lest he might be driven by 
the infamy of the plot and the anticipation 
of the gallows to commit suicide. On his 
arrival in this country he was at once com- 
mitted a close prisoner to the Tower of Lon- 
don. Although nothing was proved against 
him, his captivity lasted for eight years, till 
15 June 1618, when, at the intercession of 
the Count de Gondomar, the Spanish ambas- 
sador, he was released and sent into banish- 
ment. In 1621 Baldwin was rector of Lou- 
vain, and then (1622) the fifth rector of St. 
Omer's College, which, under his government, 
prospered to such a degree as to number 
nearly 200 scholars. He died at St. Omer 
on 28 Sept. 1632. 

Baldwin left in manuscript several volu- 
minous treatises on pious subjects. A list 
of them is given in Southwell's ' Bibliotheca 
Scriptorum Soc. Jesu.' 

[Oliver's Collectanea S. J. 49 ; More's Hist. 
Prov. Angl. S. J. 374 ; Tanner's Societas Jesu 
usque ad sanguinis et vita? profusionem militans, 
629 ; Foley's Eecords, iii. 501-520, vii. 42 ; 
Dodd's Church Hist. ii. 393 ; Oliver's Collections 
concerning the Catholic Religion in Cornwall, 
fee. 236; Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornu- 
biensis, iii. 1045 ; Boase's Register of Exeter 
College, Oxford, 186; Cal. of State Papers 
(1603-10); Morris's Condition of Catholics under 
James I (1871), p. cclviii, 165; Coxe's Cat. 
Cocld. MSS. in Collegiis Aulisq. Oxon. ii. 53; 
Diaries of the English College, Douav, 192 197 
331-1 T.C. ' 



BALDWULF, BEADWULF, or BA- 
DULF (d. 803 ?), bishop of Whithern or 
Candida Casa, in Galloway, was consecrated 
to that see 17 July 791 by Archbishop Ean- 
bald of York and Bishop JEthelberht of Hex- 
ham {Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, s. a. 791 ; SIM. 
DUE. 790; HEN. HUNT. Hist. Angl. lib. iv.) 
His assisting at the coronation of a Northum- 
brian king (Eardwulf, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 
s. a. 795), and shortly afterwards at the con- 
secration of a Northumbrian archbishop (Ean- 
bald II of York, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, s.a. 
796), shows that, in his hands, the bishopric 
established as an outpost of Anglian influence 
among the Celts of Galloway lost none of 
its original character. But Northumbria 
had by this time become so disorganised that 
it was found impossible to maintain any hold 
over this distant dependency. Baldwulf 
seems to have been the last Anglian bishop 
of Whithern (WiLL. MALM. Gesta Pontifi- 
cum, lib. iii. f. 118). On his death about 803 
(SKEXE'S Celtic Scotland, ii. 225 the date 
seems conjectural), either no bishop was ap- 
pointed, or the bishop of Lindisfarne, Heatho- 
red (FLOE. WIG. M. H. B. p. 626 D), added 
the nominal charge of Galloway to his own 
diocese. The Gallwegians had regained their 
ecclesiastical independence. 

[Authorities cited above.] T. F. T. 

BALDWYN, EDWARD (1746-1817), 
pamphleteer, was educated at St. John's Col- 
lege, Oxford (B.A., 1767 ; M.A., 1784). For 
some years he was resident in Yorkshire, 
where, under the pseudonym of ' Trim,' he 
was engaged in a literary squabble with the 
Rev. William Atkinson and other clergy- 
men of the 'evangelical' school. Subse- 
quently he removed to Ludlow in Shrop- 
shire, and eventually became rector of Abdon 
in that county. He died in Kentish Town, 
London, 11 Feb. 1817, and was buried in 
Old St. Pancras churchyard. 

He wrote : 1. ' A Critique on the Poetical 
Essays of the Rev. William Atkinson, 1787. 
2. ' Further Remarks on two of the most 
Singular Characters of the Age,' 1789. 3. < A 
Letter to the Author of Remarks on two 
of the most Singular Characters of the Age. 
By the Rev. John Crosse, vicar of Bradford ; 
with a reply by the former,' 1790, with 
which is printed ' The Olla Podrida ; or 
Trim's Entertainment for his Creditors.' 
4. ' Remarks on the Oaths, Declarations, and 
Conduct of Johnson Atkinson Busfield, Esq.,' 
1791. 5. ' A Congratulatory Address to the 
Rev. John Crosse, on the Prospect of his Re- 
covery from a Dangerous Disease,' 1791. 

[Herald and Genealogist, ii. 219; Roffe's 
British Monumental Inscriptions, i. No. 25 ; 



Bale 



4 1 



Bale 



Watt's Bibl. Brit. ; Biog. Diet, of Living Authors ; 
Cansiek's Epitaphs at St. Pancras, Middlesex, 
i. 98 ; Gent. Mag. Ixxxvii. 279 ; Cat. of Oxford I 
Graduates (1851), 29.] ' T. C. 

BALE, JOHN (1495-1563), bishop of 
Ossory, was born at the little village of 
Cove, near Dunwich in Suffolk, on 21 Nov. 
1495. His parents were in a humble rank 
of life ; but at the age of twelve he was 
sent to the Carmelite convent at Norwich, 
where he was educated, and thence he passed j 
to Jesus College, Cambridge. He was at 
first an opponent of the new learning, and 
was a zealous Roman catholic, but was con- 
verted to protestantism by the teaching of 
Lord Wentworth. He laid aside his mon- | 
astic habit, renounced his vows, and caused | 
great scandal by taking a wife, of whom 
nothing is known save that her name was 
Dorothy. This step exposed him to the 
hostility of the clergy, and he only escaped j 
punishment by the powerful protection of j 
Thomas Cromwell, earl of Essex. He held 
the living of Thornden in Suffolk, and in 
1534 was convened before the archbishop of 
York to answer for a sermon, denouncing 
Romish uses, which he had preached at 
Doncaster. Bale is said to have attracted 
Cromwell's attention by his dramas, which j 
were moralities, or scriptural plays setting 
forth the reformed opinions and attacking the 
Roman party. The earliest of Bale's plays 
was written in 1538, audits title is sufficiently 
significant of its general purport. It is called 
* A Brefe Comedy or Enterlude of Johan 
Baptystes Preachynge in the Wyldernesse ; 
openynge the craftye Assaults of the Hy- | 
pocrytes (i.e. the friars) with the glorious j 
Baptyme of the Lord Jesus Christ' (Har- \ 
Irian Miscellany, vol. i.). Bale wrote several | 
plays of a similar character. They are not 
remarkable for their poetical merits, but are 
vigorous attempts to convey his own ideas 
of religion to the popular mind. When 
Bale was bishop of Ossory, he had some of 
his plays acted by boys at the market-cross 
of Kilkenny on Sunday afternoon. 

Cromwell recognised in Bale a man who 
<>ould strike hard, and Bale continued to 
make enemies by his unscrupulous out- 
spokenness. The fall of Cromwell betokened 
a religious reaction, and Bale had too many 
enemies to stay unprotected in England. ' 
He fled in 1540 with his wife and children 
to Germany, and there he continued his con- 
troversial writings. Chief amongst them in 
importance were the collections of Wycliffite 
martyrologies, ' A brief Chronicle concerning 
the Examination and Death of Sir John 
Oldcastle, collected by John Bale out of the 
books and writings of those Popish Prelates 



which were present,' London, 1544 ; at 
the end of which was ' The Examination of 
William Thorpe,' which Foxe attributes to 
Tyndale. In 1547 Bale published at Mar- 
burg ' The Examination of Anne Askewe.' 
Another work Avhich was the fruit of his 
exile was an exposure of the monastic system 
entitled ' The Actes of Englyshe Votaryes,' 
1546. 

On the accession of Edward VI in 1547 
Bale returned to England and shared in the 
triumph of the more advanced reformers. 
He was appointed to the rectory of Bishop- 
stoke in Hampshire, and published in Lon- 
don a work which he had composed during 
his exile, 'The Image of bothe Churches 
after the most wonderfull and heavenlie 
Revelacion of Sainct John ' (1550). This 
work may be taken as the best example of 
Bale's polemical power, showing his learning, 
his rude vigour of expression, and his want 
of good taste and moderation. 

In 1551 Bale was promoted to the vicarage 
of Swaffhain in Norfolk, but he does not 
appear to have resided there. In August 
1552 Edward VI came to Southampton and 
met Bale, whom he presented to the vacant 
see of Ossory. In December Bale set out 
for Ireland, and was consecrated at Dublin 
on 2 Feb. 1553. From the beginning Bale 
showed himself an uncompromising upholder 
of the reformation doctrines. His consecra- 
tion gave rise to a controversy. The Irish 
bishops had not yet accepted the new ritual. 
The ' Form of Consecrating Bishops,' adopted 
by the English parliament, had not received 
the sanction of the Irish parliament, and 
was not binding in Ireland. Bale refused 
to be ordained by the Roman ritual, and at 
length succeeded in carrying his point, 
though a protest was made by the Dean of 
Dublin during the ceremony. Bale has left 
an account of his proceedings in his diocese 
in his 'Vocacyon of John Bale to the 
Byshopperycke of Ossorie ' (JIarleian Mis- 
cellany, vol. vi.). His own account shows 
that his zeal for the reformation was not 
tempered by discretion. At Kilkenny he 
tried to remove ' idolatries,' and thereon 
followed 'angers, slaunders, conspiracies, 
and in the end slaughters of men.' He 
angered the priests by denouncing their 
superstitions and advising them to marry. 
His extreme measures everywhere aroused 
opposition. When Edward VI's death was 
known, Bale doubted about recognising 
Lady Jane Grey, and on the proclamation 
of Queen Mary he preached at Kilkenny 
on the duty of obedience. But the catho- 
lic party at once raised its head. The 
mass was restored in the cathedral, and 



Bale 



Bale 



Bale thought it best to withdraw to Dublin, 
whence he set sail for Holland. He was 
taken prisoner by the captain of a Dutch 
inan-of-war, which was driven by stress of 
weather to St. Ives in Cornwall. There 
Bale was apprehended on a charge of high 
treason, but was released. The same fortune 
befell him at Dover. When he arrived in 
Holland he was again imprisoned, and only 
escaped by paying 300/. From Holland he 
made his way to Basel, where he remained 
in quiet till the accession of Elizabeth in 
1559. He again returned to England an old 
and worn-out man. He did not feel himself 
equal to the task of returning to his turbu- 
lent diocese of Ossory, but accepted the post 
of prebendary of Canterbuiy, and died in 
Canterbury in 1563. 

Bale was a man of great theological and 
historical learning, and of an active mind. 
But he was a coarse and bitter contro- 
versialist and awakened equal bitterness 
amongst his opponents. None of the writers 
of the reformation time in England equalled 
Bale in acerbity. He was known as ' Bilious 
Bale.' His controversial spirit was a hin- 
drance to his learning, as he was led away 
by his prejudices into frequent misstate- 
ments. The most important work of Bale 
was a history of English literature, which 
first appeared in 1548 under the title ' Illus- 
trium Majoris Britannise Scriptorum Sum- 
marium in quinque centurias divisum.' It is 
a valuable catalogue of the writings of the au- 
thors of Great Britain chronologically ar- 
ranged. Bale's second exile gave him time to 
carry on his work till his own day, and two 
editions were issued in Basel, 1557-1559. 
This work owes much to the ' Collectanea ' 
and ' Commentarii ' of John Leland, and is 
disfigured by misrepresentations and inac- 
curacies. Still its learning is considerable, 
and it deserves independent consideration, 
as it was founded on an examination of manu- 
scripts in monastic libraries, many of which 
have since been lost. The plays of Bale are 
doggerel, and are totally wanting in decorum. 
A few of them are printed in Dodsley's ' Old 
Plays,' vol. i., and in the ' Harleian Miscel- 
lany,' vol. i. The most interesting of his 
plays, 'Kynge Johan,' was printed by the 
Camden Society in 1838. It is a singular 
mixture of history and allegory, the events 
of the reign of John being transferred to the 
struggle between protestantism and popery 
in the writer's own day. His polemical 
writings were very numerous, and many of 
them were published under assumed names. 
Tanner (Bibl. Brit.) gives a catalogue of 
eighty-five printed and manuscript works 
attributed to Bale, and Cooper (Athena Can- 



tabriyienses) extends the number to ninety. 

, Besides Bale's works above mentioned, the 

: following are the most important : 1. l Acta 

Roinanorum Pontificum usque ad tempora 

I Pauli IV,' Basle, 8vo, 1538; Frankfort, 1567; 

j Leyden, 1615. 2. 'The Pageant of the Popes, 

f containing the lyves of all the Bishops of 

Rome from the beginning to the yeare 1555, 

Englished with additions by J. S. [John 

Studley],' London, 1574. 3. ' A Tragedie or 

Enterlude manifesting the chiefe promises of 

God unto man, by all ages in the olde lawe 

from the fall of Adam to the Incarnation of 

the Lord Jesus Christe,' 1538, reprinted in 

Dodsley. 4. ' New Comedy or Enterlude 

concerning the three lawes of Nature, Moises 

and Christe, corrupted by the Sodomytes, 

Pharyses and Papistes,' 1538, London, 1562. 

5. 'Yet a Course at the Romyshe Foxe/ 

Zurich, 1543. 6. ' A Mysterye of Iniquyte, 

contayned within the heretycall Genealogye 

of Ponce Pantolabus, is here both dysclosed 

and confuted,' Geneva, 1545. 7. 'TheApo- 

logye of Johan Bale agaynste a ranke Papyst/ 

[The materials for Bale's life are chiefly sup- 
plied by himself in scattered mentions in his 
many writings, and especially in ' The Vocacyon 
of John Bale to the Byshopperycke of Ossorie ' 
(Harleian Miscellany, vol. vi.). The Parker 
Society published (1849) the Select Works of 
John Bale, to which is prefixed a biographical 
notice by Kev. H. Christmas. The fullest account 
of Bale is given in Cooper's Athense Cantabri- 
gienses.] M. C. 

BALE, ROBERT (Jl. 1461), chronicler, 
known as Robert Bale the Elder, is said to 
have been born in London. He practised 
as a lawyer, and was elected notary of the 
city of London, and subsequently a judge in 
the civil courts. He wrote a chronicle of 
the city of London, and collected the stray 
records of its usages, liberties, &c. The fol- 
lowing is a list of his writings according to 
John Bale: 1. 'Londinensis Urbis Chro- 
iiicon.' 2. l Instrumenta Libertaturn Lon- 
dini.' 3. ' Gesta Regis Edwardi Tertii/ 
4. 'Alphabetum Sanctorum Angliae.' 5. *De 
Prsefectis et Consulibus Londini.' 

[Bale's (John) Scriptor. lllust. Major. Brit. 
Cat. Cent. xi. No. 58.] C. F. K. 

BALE, ROBERT (d. 1503), a Carmelite 
monk, was a native of Norfolk, and when 
very young entered the Carmelite monastery 
at Norwich. Having a great love of learn- 
ing, he spent a portion of every year in the 
Carmelite houses at Oxford or Cambridge. 
He became prior of the monastery of his 
order at Burnharn, and died 11 Nov. 1503. 
Bale enjoyed a high reputation for learning^ 



Bales 



43 



Bales 



and collected a valuable library, which he 
bequeathed to his convent. 

His principal works were : 1. 'AnnalesOr- 
dinis Carmelitarum ' (Bod. Arch. Seld. B. 
72). 2. ' Historia Heliaj Prophet^.' 3. ' Offi- 
cium Simonis Angli ' (i.e. of Simon Stock, a 
prior of his order who was canonised). 

[Bale's (Balsei) Script. Jllust. Major. Brit. 
Catal. Cent. 11, No. 59; Wood's Athense Oxon. 
(Bliss), i. 7 ; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.] C. F. K. 

BALES or BAYLES, alias EVERS, 
CHRISTOPHER(executedl589-90),priest, 
was a native of Cunsley, in the diocese of 
Durham, and studied in the English col- 
leges at Rome and Rheims. From the latter 
he was sent on the English mission in 1588. 
Having been apprehended soon afterwards, 
he was tried and convicted under the statute 
of 27 Eliz. for taking priest's orders beyond 
the seas, and coming into England to exer- 
cise his sacerdotal functions. He was drawn 
to a gallows at the end of Fetter Lane, in 
Fleet Street, London, and hanged, disem- 
bowelled, and quartered, 4 March 1589-90. 
Two laymen suffered the same day for re- 
lieving and entertaining him, viz. Nicholas 
Homer in Smithfield, and Alexander Blage 
in Gray's Inn Lane. 

[Stow's Annales, 760 ; Challoner's Missionary 
Priests (1803), i. 135; State Papers, Domestic, 
Elizabeth, ccxxx. art. 57 ; Dodd's Ch. Hist. ii. 
75.] T. C. 

BALES, PETER (1547-? 1610), caligra- 
phist, whose name appears also as BALESITJS, 
speaks of himself in the year 1595 (Harl. MS. 
675, fol. 20) as being ' within two yeares of 
fiftie,' which gives the date of his birth as 
1547. Holinshed also (iii. 1262) speaks of 
Bales as ' an Englishman borne in the citie 
of London,' but beyond this nothing what- 
ever is known of his parentage. Of his edu- 
cation it is recorded that he spent several 
years in Oxford at Gloucester Hall (WooD, 
Athen. Ox. i. 655, ed. 1813), where his micro- 
scopic penmanship, his writing from speaking 
(shorthand), arid dexterous copying, attracted 
great attention, and where his conduct secured 
for him the respect of many men at his own 
hall and at St. John's ; but there is no evi- 
dence whether he was at the university as a 
scholar or as a professor of his art, for which 
Englishmen in his day (BATLE, art. Quinc- 
tiliari) enjoyed especial repute. In 1575 it 
is certain he had risen to great eminence. 
His skill enabled him (D'IsKAELi, Curiosities 
of Literature, p. 100) to astonish ' the eyes of 
beholders by showing them what they could 
not see ' when they were shown it, for ex- 
ample, the Bible written to go into the com- 
pass of a walnut (Harl MS. 530, art, 2, f. 



14) ; and this brought him so much fame that 
he, on 17 Aug. 1575, presented Elizabeth, 
then at -Hampton Court, with a specimen 
of his work mounted under crystal or glass 
as a ring (together with ' an excellent spec- 
tacle by him devised' to allow the queen 
to read what he had written) ; and Eliza- 
beth wore this ring many times upon her 
finger (HoLiNSHED, iii. 1262), calling upon 
the lords of the council and the ambassadors 
to admire it. Bales resided in the upper 
end of the Old Bailie, near the sign of the 
Dolphin ; he advertised himself as a writing 
schoolmaster 'that teacheth to write all 
manner of handes, after a more speedie way 
than hath heretofore been taught ; ' he pro- 
mised his pupils that 'you may also learne 
to write as fast as a man speaketh, by the 
arte of Brachigraphie by him devised, writing 
but one letter for a word ; ' and that ' you 
may have anything faire written in any kind 
of hand usuall, and bookes of copies faire as 
you shall bespeake.' Many of the citizens 
and their children became his scholars. He 
was employed also in transcribing public 
documents into book form, one of these 
(Harl. MS. 2368), as even as type, being a 
beautiful specimen of his dexterity; and 
Walsingham and Hatton called him into 
use for other government purposes, such as 
deciphering and copying secret correspond- 
ence, and imitating the handwriting of inter- 
cepted letters, in order to add matter to them, 
which might bring replies to serve state ends. 
His services were turned to account in the dis- 
covery of Babingtou's plot in 1586 (CAMDEN'S 
Annals, anno 1586). Bales therefore hoped 
for appointment to some permanent post; but 
his hope was not realised, and a Mr. Peter 
Ferriman, his friend, wrote to Sir Thomas 
Randolph in 1589, urging his claims on the 
government (MS. Collection of N. Boothe, 
Esq., late of Gray's Inn). In 1590 Bales 
published * The Writing Schoolemaster,' for 
teaching ' swift writing, true writing, faire 
writing,' which was to be bought at his own 
house ; and he dedicated the little volume to 
Sir Christopher Hatton, his 'singular good 
lord and master.' His patron Walsingham 
dying in 1590, and Hat ton dying in the 
next year, 1591, Bales petitioned Burghley 
for ' preferment to the office of armes, either 
for the roome of York Herald or for the 
Pursuivantes place' (Lansdowne MSS. vol. 
xcix. art. 59). There is no evidence that this 
was given to him ; but in 1592 he obtained 
the support of Sir John Pickering, then lord 
keeper of the great seal. In 1594 Jodocus 
Hondius, caligraphist and engraver, visited 
England to collect specimens or copybook 
slips from the most celebrated masters of the 



Bales 



44 



Balfe 



pen in Europe, and engaged Bales to produce 
slips for him which were duly engraved and 
published. In 1595 occurred the trial of skill : 
between Bales and a rival penman, Daniel 
Johnson, his neighbour, living in ' Paules ' 
Churchyarde, near the Bishops Palace.' He \ 
who wrote best, and whose chosen scholar ! 
wrote best, was to receive a golden pen of 
the value of 207. The contest, being post- j 
poned from St. Bartholomew's day (24 Aug.), ; 
commenced on Monday, Michaelmas day, 
between seven and eight in the morning, at 
* the Black Fryers, within the Conduit Yard, | 
next to the Pipe Office,' before five judges j 
and a concourse of about a hundred people. \ 
It ended in Bales's triumph ; he had the pen 
1 brought to his house by foure of the judges i 
and delivered unto him absolutelie as his , 
owne ; ' and though Johnson disputed his j 
victory, printing an appeal, which he pasted ' 
on posts all over the city, declaring that ; 
Bales had only obtained possession of the 
prize by asking permission to show it to his ' 
wife who was ill, and by declaring ' a fardle of j 
untruths,' Bales demolished his objections, 
clause by clause, in ' The Original! Cause ' | 
(Harl MS. 675 supra), written 1 Jan. 
1596-7. Thenceforth he used a golden pen 
as a sign, and remained master of the field, j 
In 1597 appeared a second edition of ' The j 
Writing Schoolemaster,' with a longer list of j 
Oxford friends setting forth Bales's talents i 
in commendatory v;erses, English and Latin. | 
In 1598, office not being yet found for ; 
him, ' Mr. Wyseman solycyted the Earle of | 
Essex to have a clarke's place in the courte 
for hym ; as I take yt, to be clarke to her , 
majestic, of her highness bills to be signed ' 
(Sufferings of John Danyell, MS. : from 
the Fleet, 1602). In 1599 John Danyell, 
having found some of the Earl of Essex's 
letters to the countess, employed Bales to copy 
them, assuring him it was at the countess's 
desire. Bales suspected the truth of this, 
and asked ' Why doe you cause mee to wryte 
one letter soe often, and so lyke a hand you 
cannot reade?' He threatened, too, if he 
found anything treasonable, to lay an infor- 
mation against Danyell, and Danyell refusing 
to lend him and his friend Ferriman 207. , a 
declaration of the whole was made by them 
to the countess, and delivered to her, 2 April 
1600. In 1601, on 8 Feb., the earl himself 
was arraigned; Bales met Danyell on the 
way to Westminster Hall to be present at 
the trial, and informed him of this declara- 
tion; in 1602, Danyell being tried in the 
Star Chamber on a charge of causing these 
letters to be forged, Bales gave evidence 
there against him. 

It is not known when and where Bales 



died. Davies in his ' Scourge of Folly/ p. 154, 
nicknames him Clophonian, alludes to the 
sign at his house of a hand and golden pen, 
and speaks of him as going from place to 
place for the last half-year, from which it is 
known that he was alive in 1610, the date 
of the poem, and it is conjectured that he was 
poor and in disgi'ace. But no other mention 
of him has been found, and it is not known 
whether the Peter Bales, M.A., preaching 
at St. Mary Woolnoth, 1643, and publishing- 
one or two sermons, was of his family or not. 

A petition to be taken into ' honourable 
service ' is still extant in his hand (Lansdowne 
MSS. vol. cxix. art, 102). In this Bales 
styles himself ' cypherary.' From a petition 
presented to the House of Lords (20 Jan. 
1640-1) b} 7 his son John Bales, we learn that 
Peter Bales was at one time tutor to Prince 
Henry. 

A copy of ' The Writing Schoolemaster ' 
is at the Bodleian, and another at Lambeth 
Palace. There is not one at the British 
Museum. In the text, Bales lays down 
such rules as ' For comforting of the sight, 
it is verie good to cover the deske with 
greene ' (cap. iv.), and it 'is good at the first, 
for more assurance in good writing, to write 
betweene two lines' (cap. vii.). 

[Biog Brit. ; Evelyn's Numismata, fol. 1697; 
Danyell's Dysasters, 4to, MS. (see Biog. Brit, 
p. 546 note); Hone's Every Day Book, i. 1086.] 

J. H. 

BALFE, MICHAEL WILLIAM (1808- 
1870), musical composer, the third child of 
William Balfe, was born at 10 Pitt Street, 
Dublin, 15 May 1808. His father came of 
a family which had numbered among its 
members several professional musicians ; his 
mother's maiden name was Kate Ryan. Balfe's 
first musical instruction was received from his 
father, who was himself no mean performer on 
the violin. Under his guidance the boy made 
such rapid progress that it soon became 
necessary to place him under a more ad- 
vanced master. His education was accord- 
ingly entrusted to William O'Rourke, though 
he seems also to have received help in his 
studies from Alexander Lee, James Barton, 
and a bandmaster named Meadows. At this 
early period of his life Balfe already dis- 
tinguished himself both as executant and 
composer, his first public appearance having 
been made as a violinist at a concert given 
on 20 June 1817, while a polacca from his 
pen was performed, under the direction of 
his friend Meadows, before he was seven 
years old. On O'Rourke's leaving Dublin, 
Balfe studied with James Barton for two 
years; at the end of that time, just as he 
was beginning his professional career as a 



Balfe 



45 



Balfe 



violinist, his father died. This was in 1823. 
At about the same time an eccentric rela- 
tion of his mother's, who had amassed a 
fortune in the West Indies, offered to adopt 
young 1 Balfe if he would go out to live with 
him. But the boy would not forsake his 
profession, and determined to try his fortune 
in London. Charles Edward Horn, the 
singer, happened at that time to be fulfilling 
an engagement in Dublin, and to him Balfe 
went, emboldened by the praise he had be- 
stowed on a song of the young Irishman's, 
with a request to be taken to London as 
an articled pupil. Horn recognised Balfe's 
genius, and the result was that articles were 
signed for a period of seven years. Balfe ac- 
companied his new master to London, where 
he arrived in January 1823. After an un- 
successful debut at the Oratorio concerts on 
19 March 1823, he recognised the necessity 
of further study. Accordingly the next few 
years were spent under the tuition of C. E. 
Horn and his father, Carl Friedrich a 
thoroughly sound musician, who was then 
organist of St. George's Chapel at Windsor. 
Meanwhile the young composer supported 
himself and assisted his mother by his earnings 
as a violinist in the orchestras of Drury Lane 
Theatre and the oratorio concerts. When he 
was about eighteen, finding that his voice was 
developing the pure quality for which it was 
afterwards so remarkable, he was induced to 
try his fortune on the operatic stage, and 
appeared at the Nonvich Theatre as Caspar 
in a garbled version of Weber's ' Der Frei- 
sch.ii.tz.' Fortunately for the cause of music, 
this experiment was a decided failure, and 
Balfe returned to London, where better luck 
awaited him. His geniality and talent had 
already made him many friends, and at a 
dinner at the house of one of them, a Mr. 
Heath, he met a Count Mazzara, who was 
so struck by the resemblance between Balfe 
and an only son whom he had recently lost 
that he offered to take the young musician 
with him to Italy. The count was not only 
a liberal patron but also a wise adviser, for 
on their way to Rome he introduced Balfe 
to Cherubini, who was so much struck by 
his talent that he wished him to remain and 
study in Paris. But Balfe preferred to con- 
tinue his journey to Italy, though he parted 
with the stern master on the best of terms, 
Cherubini making him promise that if he 
had ever need of them he might demand his 
services on the plea of ' friendship based on 
admiration.' At Rome Balfe lived for several 
months with Count Mazzara. But little is 
known of his career there, save that he 
studied in a somewhat desultory manner 
under the composer Paer. In 1826 his 



patron returned to England, but previous to 
his departure he sent Balfe to Milan, where 
he studied singing and composition with Galli 
and Federici. Here he was introduced to 
! the manager of the Scala, an Englishman 
j named Glossop, who commissioned him to 
| write the music for a ballet, ' La Perouse.' 
; This work achieved remarkable success, and 
Glossop was induced to engage Balfe as a 
: singer. Unfortunately, before the day arrived 
for his first appearance, the management of 
the theatre was changed, and the young 
musician had once more to find a fresh field 
for his talents. He returned to Paris, went 
to see Cherubini, and here again fortune be- 
friended him. The Italian maestro intro- 
duced him to Rossini, who, it is said, was so 
charmed by his singing of the air from the 
I ' Barbiere,' t Largo al factotum,' as to promise 
I him an engagement at the Italian Opera, 
[ provided he would study under Bordogni for 
; a year previous to his debut. The necessary 
funds were provided by a friend of Cheru- 
bini's, and the Florentine composer himself 
! superintended Balfe's studies. Under these 
; favourable auspices he appeared in 1827 at 
the Theatre des Italiens, as Figaro in Ros- 
sini's * Barbiere,' the other characters being 
sung by Graziani, Levasseur, Bordogni, 
Madame Sontag, and Mdlle. Amigo. His 
success was so great that he was engaged 
for three years at a salary of 15,000 francs 
for the first year, 20,000 for the second, and 
25,000 for the third. Balfe's voice was a 
baritone, of more sweetness of quality than 
strength, but his singing was always dis- 
tinguished for purity of delivery and power 
of expression. During his engagement at 
Paris, Balfe did little or nothing to increase 
his reputation as a composer. He wrote 
some additional music for a revival of Zin- 
garelli's ' Romeo e Giulietta,' and began 
an opera on the subject of Chateaubriand's 
< Atala, but before the end of his engage- 
ment his health broke down, and he was 
obliged to return to Italy. At Milan he 
obtained an engagement as leading baritone 
at Palermo, but on his way there he stopped 
some time at Bologna, where he met Grisi, 
who sang in an occasional cantata he wrote 
at the time. He appeared at Palermo in 
Bellini s ' La Straniera ' on 1 Jan. 1830. In 
the course of his engagement he wrote and 
produced his first opera, ' I Rivali di se 
stessi,' a little work without chorus, which 
was written in the short space of twenty 
days. On the termination of his engagement 
at Palermo, Balfe sang at Piacenza and 
Bergamo ; at the latter place he first met 
his future wife, Mile. Lina Rosa, an Hun- 
garian singer of great talent and beauty, 



Balfe 



4 6 



Balfe 



whom he shortly afterwards married. His 
next engagement was at Pavia, where he 
superintended the production of Kossinis 
<Mose in Egitto,' and brought out a new 
work of his own, i Un Avvertimento ai 
Gelosi,' in which the celebrated buffo Ron- 
coni made his second appearance on the 
operatic stage. From Pavia he returned to 
Milan, where he received a commission for 
an opera for the Scala. This work, ' Enrico 
Quarto al Passo del Marno,' though very 
successful from an artistic point of view, 
brought Balfe only 200 francs, though even 
this small pecuniary success was compensated 
for by the fact that the work attracted 
the attention of Malibraii to the composer. 
With this great artist he next went on an 
operatic and concert tour which ended at 
Venice, and on the recommendation of J 
Malibran and her impresario, Puzzi, Balfe in 
1833 returned to England. He was com- 
missioned by Arnold to write an English 
opera for the opening of the newly built 
Lyceum Theatre, and in six weeks he pro- j 
duced the < Siege of Rochelle.' Owing to ' 
some hitch in the negotiations, the work 
was not brought out by Arnold ; but it j 
was promptly secured by Alfred Bunn, the j 
manager of Drury Lane, where it was pro- ; 
duced with immense success on 29 Oct. 1835. 
The libretto was by Edward Fitzball, a ! 
versifier who is said once to have described ' 
himself as a ' lyric poet,' and was founded on 
a romance by Madame de Genlis ; the prin- 
cipal parts were sung by Henry Phillips, 
Paul Bedford, and Miss Shirreff. Balfe's 
next work, ' The Maid of Artois,' was written 
to a libretto furnished by Bunn, the first of 
those astonishing farragoes of balderdash 
which raised the Drury Lane manager to 
the first rank amongst poetasters. The 
opera (for which Balfe received 100Z.) was 
written for Malibran, who appeared in it 
with the greatest success on 27 May 1836. 
The < Maid of Artois ' was followed at short 
intervals by ' Catherine Grey ' (libretto by 
George Linley), ' Joan of Arc ' (libretto by 
Fitzball), and < Diadeste ' (libretto by Fitz- 
ball), all of which were produced at Drury 
Lane in 1837 and 1838, though only the last, 
an opera buffa, was as successful as the com- 
poser's earlier works had been. In 1838 Balfe 
was commissioned by Laporte, the manager 
of the Italian Opera, to write a work for Her 
Majesty s Theatre. In accordance with this 
request he composed a version of the ' Merry 
Wives of Windsor,' which was produced on 
19 July 1838. 'Falstaff,' which contains 
some of its composer's best music, achieved 
great success, as could hardly fail to be the 
case, since the chief parts were sung by such 



artists as Grisi, Albertazzi, Kubini, Tambu- 
rini, and Lablache. Bunn's management of 
Drury Lane coming to an end in 1838, Balfe 
accepted an engagement in an opera com- 
pany at Dublin, after fulfilling which he 
produced several of his operas in the prin- 
cipal towns of Ireland, and after a successful 
tour in the west of England returned to 
London and resolved to start an English 
opera company on his own account. He 
opened the Lyceum on 9 March 1841 with a 
new work of his own, ' Keolanthe ' (libretto 
by Fitzball) ; but though the opera was in 
every respect successful, internal dissensions 
broke up the company, and before the end of 
May the theatre had to be closed. Once more 
the disheartened composer left England, and 
again it was in Paris that his good fortune re- 
turned to him. A concert was given in order 
to introduce his works to the Parisian public, 
and the result was so satisfactory that Scribe, 
unsolicited, offered to write him a libretto 
for the Opera Comique. This work, ' Le 
Puits d' Amour/ was produced in April 1843, 
where it achieved remarkable success. Every 
mark of distinction was showered upon the 
composer; Louis-Philippe offered him the 
cordon of the Legion of Honour, and, when 
his nationality prevented him from accept- 
ing it, proposed that he should become a 
naturalised Frenchman, offering to procure 
for him a post at the Paris Conservatoire. 
In the same year as his Parisian triumph, 
Balfe was recalled to London to superintend 
the production of an English version of ' Le 
Puits d' Amour ' at the Princess's Theatre, 
and also to arrange with Bunn for a new 
opera for Drury Lane. This work was his 
famous 'Bohemian Girl,' the libretto of which 
was concocted by Bunn on the foundation 
of a ballet by St. Georges, the subject of 
which in its turn was taken from one of the 
novels of Cervantes. The ' Bohemian Girl ' 
was produced at Drury Lane on 27 Nov. 
1843, the principal characters being played 
by Miss Rainforth, Miss Betts, Harrison, 
Stretton, Borrani, and Darnset. The work 
ran for more than a hundred nights, and was 
translated into German, Italian, and French, 
being received everywhere with the greatest 
success. The following year (1844) wit- 
nessed the production at Paris of 'LesQuatre 
Fils Aymon ' and in London of ' The 
Daughter of St. Mark,' in the libretto of 
which latter work Bunn excelled himself. 
These were followed at a short interval by 
'L'Etoile de Seville' (Paris, 1845). In 1846, 
on the secession of Sir Michael Costa, Balfe 
was appointed conductor of the Italian Opera 
at Her Majesty's Theatre, then under the 
management of Lumley, a post for which he 



Balfe 



47 



Balfe 



was eminently fitted by his personal skill as ! 
an instrumentalist and vocalist and his in- ' 
tiniate knowledge of operatic details. His 
chief compositions during this period were j 
the ' Bondman ' (Drury Lane, December j 
1846), ' The Devil's in it ' (Surrey, 1847), ! 
and the ' Maid of Honour ' (Covent Garden, 
1847). The next few years were spent in 
various musical tours, both in England and I 
abroad, the only work of importance which , 
he composed being the ' Sicilian Bride,' pro- 
duced at Drury Lane in 1852. In the 
same year he visited St. Petersburg, Vienna, 
and Italy, where he wrote an Italian opera, 
' Pittore e Duca,' which was produced in 
1856, and was played in an English version 
in London in 1882. In 1857 he returned to 
England, and was soon occupied in com- 
posing for the Pyne-Harrison company at 
Covent Garden the works which were its 
main support, the ' Rose of Castille' (October 
1857), ' Satanella'(Decemberl858), 'Bianca' 
(December 1860), the ' Puritan's Daughter' 
(November 1861), 'Blanche de Nevers' 
(November 1862), and the 'Armourer of 
Nantes' (February 1863). These, with a 
cantata, 'Mazeppa,' and an operetta, the 
* Sleeping Queen,' were the last works of 
Balfe's produced during his lifetime. In 
1864 he left the house in Seymour Street, 
where he had lived for the last few years, 
and moved to Rowney Abbey, a small estate 
in Hertfordshire which he had bought. It 
was whilst living here, and on a visit to his 
daughter (the Duchess de Frias), that he 
wrote his last opera, the 'Knight of the 
Leopard,' the libretto of which was founded 
by the author, Arthur Matthison, on Sir 
Walter Scott's 'Talisman.' On this work 
Balfe bestowed more than ordinary care, and 
it was his hope that it would be performed 
on the English stage with Mile. Tietjens 
and Messrs. Sims Reeves and Santley in the 
principal parts. With this aim before him 
he declined an offer which was pressed upon 
him by Napoleon III to have it produced in ! 
Paris ; but his hope was never to be gratified, 
and the work was only destined to be pro- 
duced in an Italian version and with a 
changed name four years after the composer's 
death. At the end of 1869 his ' Bohemian 
Girl ' was produced in French at Paris, and 
once more foreign honours and decorations 
were conferred upon the Irish composer. In 
the spring of 1870 he returned from Paris 
to Rowney, but the severity of the winter 
and a domestic affliction he had sustained in 
the loss of his second daughter, Mrs. Behrend, 
had weakened his constitution to an alarm- 
ing degree. In September he was taken ill 
with spasmodic asthma, a complaint from 



which he had long suffered, and though for 
a time he seemed to rally, he gradually sank, 
and died at Rowney Abbey on 20 Oct. 1870. 
He was buried at Kensal Green, and eight 
years later a tablet was erected to his memory 
in Westminster Abbey. 

In estimating Balfe's position amongst the 
musicians of his century, it is necessary to 
bear constantly in mind the circumstances 
under which he won his renown as an operatic 
composer. From his Irish parentage he in- 
herited a gift of melody which never deserted 
him throughout his prolific career ; from 
England he can have gained but little, for 
in those days English music was practically 
non-existent : it was from France and Italy 
that he received his musical education, and 
it was on French and Italian boards that his 
first laurels were won. But the period which 
Balfe's life covers saw the palm of musical 
pre-eminence transferred from Italy and 
France to Germany. When the 'Siege of 
Rochelle' was written, Wagner was un- 
known. Forty years later, when ' II Talis- 
mano ' was produced, the only living Italian 
composer of eminence had proclaimed to a 
great extent his adherence to the principles 
preached by the German school. Thus it is 
that opinions differ so widely as to the merits 
of Balfe's music. To musicians who judge 
him from the point of view of the old ideal, 
his brilliancy, melody, and fertility of inven- 
tion will entitle him to a place beside Ber- 
lini, Rossini, and Auber, while, on the other 
hand, by those who look for deeper thought 
and more intellectual aims in music, he will 
be regarded as a mere melodist, the ephe- 
meral caterer to a generation who judged 
rather by manner of expression than by the 
value of what was expressed. The truth, as 
is usual in such cases, lies midway between 
these extremes. His invention, knowledge 
of effect, and above all his melody, will keep 
his works from being forgotten ; and if they 
are deficient in those higher qualities de- 
manded by the taste of the present day, that 
is no reason why, within their limits, they 
should cease to please. Balfe's music may 
not be the highest, but of its kind it attains 
a very high degree of excellence. A thorough 
master of the means at his command, and 
intimately aware of the limits of his powers, 
he never attempted what he could not per- 
form, and the result was that he produced 
such a number of works which are always 
satisfactory and often delightful. 

[Kenny's Life of Balfe (1865) ; Barrett's Balfe 
and his Works (1882); Harmonicon for 1823 ; 
contemporary newspapers; Add. MSS. 29261, 
29498 ; information from Madame Balfe.] 

W. B. S. 



Balfe 



4 8 



Balfour 



BALFE, VICTORIA. [See CRAMPTON.] 

BALFOUR, ALEXANDER (1767- 
1829), novelist, was born in the parish of 
Monikie, Forfarshire, Scotland, on 1 March 
1767. His parents were both of the humblest 
peasantry. Being a twin, he was from his 
birth under the care of a relative. He was 
physically weak. His education was of the 
scantiest. When a mere lad he war- appren- 
ticed to a weaver. Later he taught in a 
school in his native parish, and many lived 
to remember him gratefully for his rough 
and ready but successful teaching of them. 
In his twenty-sixth year (1793) he became 
one of the clerks of a merchant manufacturer 
in Arbroath. In 1794 he married. He com- 
menced author at the age of twelve. Not very 
long after he filled ' the poets' corner ' in the 
local newspaper. Later he contributed verse 
to the ' British Chronicle ' newspaper and to 
the ' Bee ' of Dr. Anderson. In 1793 he was 
one of the writers in the 'Dundee Reposi- 
tory ' and in 1796 in the ' Aberdeen Maga- 
zine.' Four years after his removal to Ar- 
broath he changed his situation, and two years 
later, on the death of his first employer, he 
carried on the business in partnership with 
his widow. On her retirement in 1800 he 
took another partner, and, having succeeded 
in obtaining a government contract to supply 
the navy with canvas, in a few years he 
possessed considerable property. During the 
war with France, he published patriotic poems 
and songs in the ' Dundee Advertiser,' which 
were reprinted in London. To the ' Northern 
Minstrel' of Newcastle-on-Tyne he furnished 
many songs, and a number of poems to the 
Montrose 'Literary Mirror.' He wrote an 
account of Arbroath for (Sir David) Brew- 
ster's ' Encyclopaedia,' and several papers for 
Tilloch's 'Philosophical Journal.' In 1814 
he removed to Trottick, near Dundee, as 
manager of a branch of a London house. In 
the following year it became bankrupt, and 
Balfour was again thrown on the world. 
He found a poor employment as manager of 
a manufacturing establishment at Balgonie, 
Fifeshire. In October 1818, for the sake of 
his children's education, he transferred him- 
self to Edinburgh, and obtained a situation 
as clerk in the great publishing house of the 
Messrs. Blackwood. U nhappily in the course 
of a few months he was struck down by 
paralysis, and in June 1819 was obliged to 
relinquish his employment. He recovered 
so far that he could lie wheeled about in a 
specially prepared chair. His intellect was 
untouched, and he devoted himself to litera- 
ture. In 1819 appeared his 'Campbell; or 
the Scottish Probationer' (3 vols.). The 



novel was well received. In the same year 
he edited Richard Gall's ' Poems,' with a 
memoir. In 1820 he published ' Contem- 
plation, and other Poems ' (1 vol.). In 1822 
came his second novel of the ' Farmer's Three 
Daughters ' (3 vols.), and in 1823 'The Found- 
ling of Glenthorn ; or the Smuggler's Cave, 
a Romance ' (3 vols.). In 1825 he republislied 
from Constable's ' Edinburgh Magazine ' ' Cha- 
racters omitted in Crabbe's Parish Register ' 
(1 vol.), and his 'Highland Mary' (4 vols.) 
in 1827. He died on 12 Sept. 1829. The 
' Remains,' entitled ' Weeds and Wildflowers/ 
were edited by Dr. D. M. Moir (A) with a 
sympathetic memoir, whence ours is mainly 
drawn. Balfour wrote his novels for ' the . 
Minerva Press,' as needing ' daily bread,' but 
he never pandered to the low morale of its 
habitual readers. Pathos and shrewdness of 
insight and a very graphic faculty of sketch- 
ing character are his chief characteristics. 
Canning sent him a grant of 100/. in recog- 
nition of his ability and misfortunes. 

[Balfour s Kemaius, edited by Dr. D. M. Moir.] 

A. E.G. 

BALFOUR, SIR ANDREW (1630-1694 ), 
botanist, was born on 18 Jan. 1630 at Balfour 
Castle, Denmiln, Fifeshire ; the youngest son 
of his parents, Sir Michael Balfour, and 
Joanna, daughter of James Durham of Pike- 
roAv. His eldest brother James [see BALFOUR, 
SIR JAMES, 1600-1657] was thirty years his 
senior, the family consisting of five sons and 
nine daughters. He was baptised on the day 
of his birth, and his education was conducted 
in the parish school of Abdie, and afterwards 
at the university of St. AndreAVS ; at the 
latter he began his study of natural history 
and medicine, and then came to Oxford. He 
spent some years in foreign traA r el ; in France 
he studied in Paris, Montpellier, and Caen, 
also in Italy at Padua, but spent most time 
in Paris, studying medicine, anatomy, and 
botany, in the royal garden, of which Joncquet 
Avas then prefect. On his return, after taking 
his degree of M.D. at Caen on 20 Sept. 1661, 
he stayed long in London in the practice of 
his profession, HarA r ey, De Mayone, Glisson, 
and Wharton being named as his compeers. 
He traA'elled as tutor to the Earl of Ross 
again on the continent, and spent four years 
in France and Italy, visiting Zanoni at Bo- 
logna, Avho showed him the unpublishedplates 
of his ' Historia Plant-arum,' and Torre at 
Padua. After fifteen years' traA T el abroad he 
returned to St. AndreAvs, where he recom- 
menced the practice of medicine, but after- 
Avards removed to Edinburgh. A year or two 
after his settlement at the latter place he began 
his botanic garden ; procuring seeds from Dr. 



Balfour 



49 



Balfour 



Kobert Morison of Blois, and afterwards of 
Oxford, and M. Marchant of Paris, and others, 
he soon had more than a thousand species in 
cultivation. He founded the public botanic 
gardens at Edinburgh about 1680 by the 
good offices of Lord Patrick Murray of Le- 
vistone, and he transferred thither his own 
plants to the care of Sutherland, the first 
curator, who published a catalogue in 1683. 
On Lord Murray's death in 1671, the cost of 
maintenance fell upon Balfour and Sir Robert 
Sibbald, until the university granted an an- 
nual subsidy from the corporate funds. He 
died 10 Jan. 1694, aged 62, leaving his cu- 
riosities and manuscripts to Sibbald. After 
his death his son published at Edinburgh in 
1700 ' Letters write to a Friend ' [Lord Mur- 
ray], containing excellent directions and ad- 
vices for travelling through France and Italy. 
Sibbald published in 1699 a life of Sir Andrew 
and his brother Sir James, under the title of 
' Memoria Balfouriana.' 

[Sibbald's Memoria Balfouriana, Edin. 1699 ; 
Auctarium Mussel Balfouriani e Musreo Sibbaldi- 
ano, Edin. 1697 ; Pulteney's Sketches, ii. 3, Lond. 
1790.] B. D. J. 

BALFOUR, CLARA LUCAS (1808- 
1878), lecturer and authoress, was born in 
the New Forest, Hampshire, on 21 Dec. 1808. | 
Her parents' name was Liddell ; she was 
their only child, and on the death of her 
father in her childhood, her mother, who was 
a woman of much intellectual power, left 
Hampshire and took up her residence in 
London. Miss Liddell was educated with 
extreme care by her mother; and in 1827 
became the wife of Mr. James Balfour, of 
the Ways and Means Office in the House of 
Commons, her new home being in Chelsea. 
There, in 1837, some socialistic movement 
opposed to her views was being actively 
organised ; she wrote a tract against it, com- 
pletely breaking it up, for which Mrs. Carlyle 
called upon her to thank her, and began a 
friendship with her ; and there also, in the 
same year, in the month of October, she first 
turned her attention to the teetotal agitation 
( Our Old October, reprinted as a penny pamph- 
let from the ' Scottish Review '). Having 
taken the pledge at the Bible Christians' 
chapel, a very humble meeting-place close by 
her house, and having from that moment 
adopted teetotalism as the earnest business 
of her life, Mrs. Balfour, in 1841 (after re- 
moving to Maida Hill), began her career as i 
a temperance lecturer at the Greenwich \ 
Literary Institution, and with much power, 
but much also of modesty and quiet charm, | 
continued the public advocacy of her prin- j 
ciples for nearly thirty years. Her lectures j 

TOL. III. 



' Introductory Essay to 
ternal Solicitude,' 1855. 



| were not, however, confined to the temper- 
j ance topic. She lectured on the influence of 
| woman on society, and kindred subjects ; and 
she held the post for some years of lecturer 
on belles lettres at a leading ladies' school. 
Her publications, mostly to advocate temper- 
ance, but also with a theological aim, and 
covering a varied surface, had an immense 
sale, and were very numerous. They were 
as follows: 1. * Moral Heroism,' 1846. 
2. ' Women of Scripture,' 1847. 3. * Women 
and the Temperance Movement,' 1849. 4. ' A 
Whisper to the Newly Married,' 1850. 
5. 'Happy Evenings,' 1851. 6. 'Sketches 
of English Literature,' 1852. 7. 'Two Christ- 
mas Days,' 1852. 8. ' Morning Dew Drops,' 
with preface by Mrs. Beecher Stowe, 1853. 
9. ' Working Women,' and several short 
sketches, as ' Instructors,' of Mrs. Barbauld, 
Mrs. Trimmer, Mrs. Sherman, Hannah More, 
&c., 1854. 10. 
Ann Taylor's Maternal 
11. ' Bands of Hope,' 1857. 12. < Dr. Lig- 
num's Sliding Scale,' 1858. 13. 'Frank's 
Sunday Coat,' 1860. 14. 'Scrub,' 1860. 
15. 'toil and Trust,' 1860. 16. 'The 
Victim,' 1860. 17. 'The Warning,' 1860. 
18. ' The Two Homes,' 1860. 19. 'Sunbeams 
for all Seasons,' 1861. 20. 'Drift,' 1861. 
21. Uphill Work,' 1861. 22. 'Confessions of a 
Decanter,' 1862. 23. ' History of a Shilling,' 

1862. 24. ' Wanderings of a Bible,' 1862. 
25. 'A Mother's Sermon,' 1862. 26. ' Our 
Old October,' 1863. 27. 'Cousin Bessie,' 

1863. 28. ' Hope for Number Two,' 1863. 
29. ' A Little Voice,' 1863. 30. ' A Peep 
out of the Window/ 1863. 31. ' Club 
Night,' 1864. 32. ' Troubled Waters,' 1864. 
33. 'Cruelty and Cowardice,' 1866. 34. 'Bible 
Patterns of Good Women,' 1867. 35. ' Ways 
and Means,' 1868. 36. ' Harry Wilson,' 1870. 
37. ' One by Herself,' 1872. 38. ' All but 
Lost,' 1873. 39. ' Ethel's Strange Lodger,' 
1873. 40. 'Lame Dick's Lantern,' 1874. 
41. 'Light at last,' 1874. 42. 'Women 
worth Emulating,' 1877. 43. 'Home Makers,' 
1878. Besides these, ' Lilian's Trial ' was 
being published at the time of Mrs. Balfour's 
death in the ' Fireside ; ' ' Job Tuft on ' ap- 
peared as late as 1882 in the National 
Temperance publications ; and ' The Burmish 
Family,' and ' The Manor Mystery,' are other 
tales brought out posthumously. Of these 
works several were printed again and again, 
and the ' Whisper to the Newly Married ' 
reached as many as twenty-three editions. 
Mrs. Balfour contributed many of these 
shorter tales, in the first instance to the 
' British Workman,' ' Day of Days,' ' Hand 
and Heart,' ' Animal World,' ' Meliora, 

' Family Visitor,' ' Home Words,' ' Fireside/ 

E 



Balfour 



Balfour 



'Band of Hope Ke view,' and the 'Onward' Asiatic Society') Balfour contributed in 1790 
series. Others were issued as Social Science < a paper on Arabic roots, showing how the 
Tracts, and some published by the Scottish Arabic language had entered into the Per- 
and the British Temperance Leagues. \ sian and the language of Hindostan (ii. 205), 

Mrs. Balfour' s last ptiblic appearance was | and in 1805 a paper entitled ' Extracts from 
at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street, in j Tehzeebul Mantik ; or the Essence of Logic, 
May 1877, when she was elected president j proposed as a small supplement to Arabic 
of the British Women's Temperance League, j and Persian Grammar, and with a view to 
She died at Croydon 3 July 1878, aged 70 ! elucidate certain points connected with Ori- 
years, and was buried at the Paddington j ental Literature ' (viii. 89). 
Cemetery, the Rev. Dawson Burns, M.A., 1 Balfour's medical works were as follows : 
preaching her memorial discourse (which was ! 1. ' Dissertatio de Gonorrhea Virulenta,' 
afterwards published) in the Church Street 'vrM <> ' A Tr^w Qr k l-T.i 1 *io*T n fl nM Aa 



Chapel, Edgware Road. 



1767. 2. ' A Treatise on Sol-Lunar Influence 
in Fevers,' vol. i. Calcutta, 1784; 2nd ed. 



moon. 3. ' Treatise on Putrid Intestinal 
Remitting Fevers,' 1790; 2nd ed. 1795. 



A son of Mrs. Balfour, Mr. J. S. Balfour, j London, 1795 ; 3rd ed. Cupar, 1815 ; 4th ed. 
was M.P. for Tamworth on the liberal side. Cupar, 1816. A German translation of the 

[Templar and Temperance Journal, 10 July j book with a preface by Herr Lauth ap- 
1878; Hand and Heart, 12 July 1878; The \ peared at Strasburg in 1786. Balfour here 
Oracle, 22 July 1882, p. 60; Notice prefixed to expounds his favourite theory, that fevers 
Home Makers, 1878.] J. H. j are under the direct influence of the moon, 

and reach their critical stage with the full 

BALFOUR, FRANCIS, M.D. (Jt. 1812), 
Anglo-Indian medical officer, ap 
taken the 
entered the East 

Bengal as assistant-surgeon 'on 3 July 1769, j the Diurnal Variations of the Barometer, 
was appointed full surgeon on 10 Aug. 1777, ' Edinburgh Phil. Trans.' (iv. pt. i. 25), 1798. 
and retired from the service on 16 Sept. 6. A paper on the Effects of Sol-Lunar In- 
1807 (DODWELL and MILES' Indian Medical \ fluence on the Fevers of India in 'Asiatic 
Officers, 4-5). He afterwards returned to j Researches' (viii. 1), 1805. 
Edinburgh ; but the date of his death is un- 
certain. He appears to have been living in 
1816. 

Balfour lived for several years on terms of 
some intimacy with Warren Hastings. He 



degree of M.D. at Edinburgh. He 4. A paper on the Barometer in the 'Asiatic 
le East India Company's service in Researches ' (iv. 195), 1795. 5. A paper on 

, .__ O T__l 1 /TrV 1 ,1 T~v* T TT t f {* t 1 



dedicated a book ' The Forms of Herkern ' 
to him in 1781, and addressed him a letter in 



[Authorities cited above ; Watt's Bibl. Brit. ; 
Balfour's works; Diet, of Living Authors, 1816.] 

S. L. L. 



BALFOUR, FRANCIS MAITLAND 

(1851-1882), naturalist, the third son of 
James Maitland Balfour, of Whittmghame, 



the same year complaining of the want of j East Lothian, and Lady Blanche, daughter 
courtesy shown him by other officials in the of the second Marquis of Salisbury, was born 



East India service at Lucknow (Addit. MS. 
29151, f. 109). In May, June, and July 1783, 
Balfour, while at Benares, corresponded fre- 
quently with Hastings in an abortive attempt 
to disclose a plot between the resident of ! 
Benares, Francis Fowke, and Rajah Cheyte 
Sing, which he claimed to have discovered 
(Addit. MSS. 29159, ff. 257, 388, 394, 400 ; 
29160, ff. 49, 50, 69, 83, 104, 116). Balfour 
not only interested himself in politics and 
medicine, but devoted much time to Oriental 
studies. ' The Forms of Herkern . . . trans- 
lated into English ... by Francis Balfour,' 
was published at Calcutta in 1781, and re- 
published in London in 1804. It is a state 
letter-writer in Persian; a vocabulary is 
given by the translator at the end. Balfour 
was one of the earliest members of the Bengal 
Asiatic Society, founded, under the presi- 
dency of Sir William Jones and the patronage 
of Warren Hastings, in 1784. To the ' Asi- 
atic Researches ' (' Transactions of the Bengal 



at Edinburgh, during a temj 
parents there, on 10 Nov. 



rary stay of his 

His first years were spent at Whitting- 
hame, where a love for natural science, care- 
fully fostered by his mother, early developed 
itself in him, and led him, while still a boy, 
to make not inconsiderable collections of the 
fossils and birds of his native county. After 
two years spent in a preparatory school at 
Hoddesdon, Herts, he entered at Harrow in 
1865. In the ordinary studies of the school 
he did not greatly distinguish himself, but, 
under the guidance of one of the masters, 
Mr. G. Griffith, he made rapid progress in 
natural science, especially in geology. His 
attainments in this direction, together with 
the increasing proofs that he possessed a 
character of unusual strength, led those 
around him thus early to conclude that he 
would before long make his mark. In Octo- 
ber 1870 he entered into residence at Trinity 
College, Cambridge, and, being now able to 



Balfour 



Balfour 



devote his whole time to his favourite studies, 
soon begun to show what manner of man he 
was. At Easter 1871 he became natural 
science .scholar of his college, and very shortly 
afterwards, under the guidance of the Trinity 
prselector of physiology, Dr. Michael Foster, | 
threw himself with great ardour into the j 
investigation of certain obscure points in the j 
development of the chick. For by this time [ 
his earlier love for geology had given way to 
a desire to attack the difficult problems of 
animal morphology, and these he, like others, 
saw could be best approached by the study 
of embryology^, that is the history of the de- 
velopment of individual forms. The results 
at which he arrived in this, so to speak, appren- 
tice work were published in the l Quarterly 
Journal of Microscopical Science' in July 
1873. 

In December 1873 he passed the B.A. ex- 
amination in the natural sciences tripos, and 
almost immediately after started for Naples 
to work at the Stazione Zoologica, which had 
recently been established by Dr. Anton Dohrn. 
He foresaw that the embryonic history of the 
elasmobranch fishes (sharks, rays, &c. ), about 
which little was at that time known, would 
probably yield results of great morphological 
importance. Nor was he mistaken. His first 
year's work on these animals yielded new j 
facts of supreme importance concerning the j 
development of the kidneys and allied organs, I 
concerning the origin of the spinal nerves, ' 
and concerning the- initial changes in the { 
ovum and the early stages of the embryo. 
And these facts did not in his hands remain 
barren facts. With remarkable power and | 
insight he at once grasped their meaning, and , 
showed how great a light they shed on the 
relations of sharks both to other vertebrates 
And especially to invertebrates. He made 
them tell the tale of evolution. 

The worth of the young observer's works was 
soon recognised. In his college it gained for | 
him a fellowship, while both in England, and 
perhaps even more abroad, biologists at once 
felt that a new strong man had arisen among j 
them. The elasmobranch work took, how- j 
ever, some time to complete ; it was carried i 
on partly at Cambridge, partly at Naples, for 
the next two or three years, and the finished j 
monograph was not published till 1878. 
Meanwhile, in 1876, he was appointed lec- 
turer on animal morphology at Cambridge, 
and he threw himself into the labour of 
teaching with the same ardour, and showed 
in it the same power, that were so con- 
spicuous in his original investigations. His 
class, at first small, soon became large, and I 
before long he had pupils not content with 
knowing what was known, but anxious like 



himself to explore the unknown ; besides, 
students in embryology came to him from 
outside the Cambridge school, it may almost 
be said from all parts of the world. No 
sooner was the elasmobranch monograph off 
his hands than he set himself to write a 
complete treatise on embryology, the want 
of such a work being greatly felt. This opus 
magnum, which appeared in two volumes, 
one in 1880, the other in 1881, is in the first 
place a masterly digest of the enormous 
number of observations, the majority made 
within the last ten or twenty years, which 
form the basis of modern embryology. As 
a mere work of erudition and of lucid ex- 
position it is a production of the highest 
value. But it is much more than this. In 
it there are embodied the results of so many 
inquiries carried out by Balfour or by his 
pupils under his care, that the book comes 
near to being even in matter an original 
work, while on almost every page there is 
the touch of a master hand. Every problem 
is grasped with a strong hold, cobwebs are 
brushed away with a firm but courteous 
sweep ; and as the reader passes from page 
to page, subtle solutions of knotty points 
and bright suggestions for future inquiry 
come upon him again and again. Not once 
or twice only, but many times, the darkness 
in which previous observers had left a subject 
is scattered by a few shining lines. It is a work 
full of new light from beginning to end. 

Nor was the world tardy in acknowledging 
the value of the young morphologist's labours. 
In 1878 he was elected a fellow of the Royal 
Society, and in 1881 received a i royal medal' 
for his discoveries. Oxford was most anxious 
to gain him as a successor to the late Pro- 
fessor G. Holleston, and Edinburgh made 
repeated efforts to secure him for her chair of 
natural history. But he would not leave his 
own university, and in recognition of his 
worth and loyalty a special professorship of 
animal morphology was in the spring of 1882 
instituted for him at Cambridge. 

In June 1882, his health having been im- 
paired by an attack of typhoid fever during 
the previous winter, he started for Switzer- 
land, hoping by some Alpine climbing, of 
which he had become very fond, and in which 
he showed great skill, to make complete the 
recovery of his strength. On 18 July he and 
his guide set out from Cormayeur to ascend 
the virgin peak of the Aiguille Blanche de 
Peuteret. They never came back alive. A 
few days later their dead bodies were found 
on the rocks by an exploring party. Either 
on the ascent or descent, some time apparently 
of the next day, the 19th, they must have 
fallen and been killed instantaneously. His 

E 2 



Balfour 



5 2 



Balfour 



body was brought home to England and j 
buried at Whittinghame. 

Probably few lives of this generation were 
so full of promise as the mie thus cut short. 
The remarkable powers which Balfour pos- 
sessed of rapid yet exact observation, of quick 
insight into the meaning of the things ob- ' 
served, of imaginative daring in hypothesis 
kept straight by a singularly clear logical 
sense, through which the proven was sharply 
distinguished from the merely probable, made 
all biologists hope that the striking work 
which he had already done was but the 
earnest of still greater things to come. Nor 
do biologists alone mourn him. In his col- 
lege, in his university, and elsewhere, he was 
already recognised as a man of most unusual 
administrative abilities. Whatever he took 
in hand he did masterly and with wisdom. 
Yet to his friends his intellectual powers 
seemed a part only of his worth. High- 
minded, generous, courteous, a brilliant fasci- 
nating companion, a steadfast loving friend, 
he won, as few men ever did, the hearts of 
all who were privileged to know him. 

[Personal knowledge.] M. F. 

BALFOUR, SIB JAMES (d. 1583), 
of Pittendreich, Scottish judge, was a son of 
Sir Michael Balfour, of Mouiitquhanny, in 
Fife. Educated for the priesthood, he adopted 
the legal branch of the clerical profession, as 
was common in Scotland at this period. 
Having taken part with his brothers, David 
and Gilbert, in the plot for the assassination 
of Cardinal Beaton, he shared the fate of 
the conspirators, who, on the surrender of 
the castle of St. Andrews, in June 1547, to 
the French, were allowed to save their lives 
by service in the galleys. John Knox, his 
fellow prisoner in the same galley, who 
looked upon Balfour as a renegade, and de- 
nounces him as a manifest blasphemer and 
the principal misguider of Scotland for his 
desertion from the party of the reformers, 
records his release in 1549, which, accord- 
ing to Spottiswoode, a less adverse authority, 
was due to his abjuring his profession. Soon 
after he became official of the archdeaconry 
of Lothian, and chief judge of the consis- 
torial court of the archbishop of St. An- 
drews. He contimied for some years to 
support the policy of Mary of Guise, then, 
passing over to that of the 'lords of the con- 
gregation, was admitted to their councils, 
and betrayed their secrets. He was re- 
warded by the preferment of the parsonage 
of Flick, in Fife. Soon after Queen Mary's 
return to Scotland, he was nominated an 
extraordinary lord, 12 Nov. 1561, and on 
15 Nov. 1563 an ordinary lord, of the court 



of session. The abolition, in 1560, of the 
ecclesiastical consistorial jurisdiction, one of 
the first fruits of the Reformation, led to 
great confusion with reference to the im- 

Ctant causes that had been referred to it. 
ides others, all those relating to marriage, 
legitimacy, and wills, were in its control, and 
it was found necessary to institute a commis- 
sary court at Edinburgh in its stead. Balfour 
was the chief of the four first commissaries, 
and the charter of their appointment, on 
8 Feb. 1563, is printed in the treatise which 
has received the name of 'Balfour's Prac- 
ticks.' With other partisans of Bothwell 
and Bothwell himself he is said to have 
escaped from Holyrood on the night of 
! Rizzio's murder, but Macgill, the lord clerk 
' register, having been deprived of that office 
1 for his share in the plot, Balfour succeeded 
to the vacancy. Common rumour, supported 
, in this instance by probable evidence, as- 
signed to Balfour the infamous part of having- 
! drawn the bond for Darnley's murder, and 
provided the lodging, a house of one of his 
i brothers, in the Kirk o' Field, where the 
i deed was done. Though not present, accord^ 
! ing to the confessions of the perpetrators, he 
was accused of complicity by the tickets or 
placards which appeared on the walls of 
; Edinburgh immediately after the commis- 
j sion of the crime. His appointment, during 
the short period of Bothwell's power, to 
: the incongruous post for a lawyer of 
! governor of Edinburgh Castle ; his acting 
1 as commissary in the divorce suit by Lady 
Bothwell against her husband, and as lord 
clerk register in the registration of Mary's 
consent to the contract of marriage with 
Bothwell, leave no doubt that he was a 
useful and ready instrument in the hands 
of the chief assassin, and received his re- 
I ward. With an adroitness in changing sides 
in which, though not singular, he excelled 
the other politicians of the time, he fore- 
! stalled the fall of Bothwell and made terms 
with Murray by the surrender of the castle, 
I receiving in return a gift of the priory of 
; Pittenweem, an annuity for his son out of 
the rents of the priory of St. Andrews, and 
a pardon for his share in Darnley's death. 
According to the journal ascribed to Mary's 
1 secretary, Nau, it was by the advice of 
I Balfour, ' a traitor who offered himself first 
! to the one party and then to the other,' that 
j the queen left Dunbar and took the march 
' to Edinburgh which led to her surrender at 
Carberry Hill. He was present at the battle 
of Langside, in the regent's army. Having 
surrendered the office of lord clerk register 
I to allow of the reinstatement of Macgill, a 
friend of the regent Murray, Balfour received 



Balfour 



53 



Balfour 



a pension of 500/. and the presidency of the 
court of session, from which William Baillie, 
Lord Provand, was removed on the ground 
that he was not, as the act instituting it re- 
quired, of the clerical order a mere pre- 
tence on the part of the leader of the pro- 
testant party. That lie betrayed Bothwell 
by giving the information which led to the 
interception of the casket letters is doubted, 
not because such an act would be in the 
least inconsistent with his character, but 
because it is deemed by many a more pro- 
bable solution of the mystery that the letters 
were fabrications. During the regency of 
Murray he was suspected of intriguing with 
the adherents of the queen while ostensibly 
belonging to the party of the regent, and he 
was deprived of the office of president in 
1568. Shortly before the death of Murray, 
Balfour was imprisoned, on the accusation of 
Lennox, for his share in Darnley's murder ; 
but a bribe to Wood, the regent's secretary, 
procured his release without trial, and though 
he lost the presidency of the court he retained 
the priory of Pittenweem. After the accession 
of Lennox to the regency, he was forfeited 
on 30 Aug. 1571, but he made terms with 
Morton in the following year by abandoning 
his associates on the queen's side, Maitland 
of Lethington and Kirkcaldy of Grange, 
and negotiating the pacification of Perth in 
1573. Not unnaturally distrusted, even by 
those he pretended to serve, and doubting his 
own safety, he soon afterwards fled to France, 
where he appears to have remained till 1580, 
and in 1579 the forfeiture of 157 1 was renewed 
by parliament. On his return he devoted him- 
self to the overthrow of Morton, which he 
accomplished, it has been said, by the produc- 
tion of the bond for Darnley's murder which 
he had himself drawn, but more probably of 
the subsequent bond in support of Bothwell's 
marriage with Mary. The last certain ap- 
pearance of Balfour in history is in a long 
letter by him to Mary, on 31 Jan. 1580, 
offering her his services ; but he is believed 
to have lived till 1583, from an entry in 
the books of the privy council on 24 Jan. i 
1584, restoring his children, which refers j 
to him as then dead. By his wife Margaret, I 
the heiress of Michael Balfour, of Burleigh, i 
he had three daughters and six sons, the 
eldest of whom was created by James Lord 
Balfour of Burleigh in 1606. Balfour ap- 
pears to have been a learned lawyer, and is 
praised by his contemporary, Henryson, for 
the part he took in the commission issued in 
1566 for the consolidation of the laws. Some 
parts of the compilation, published in 1774 
from a manuscript in the Advocates' Library, 
"were taken from the collection probably 



made by him in connection with this com- 
mission. But the special references to the 
Book of Balfour (Liber de Balfour) and the 
fact that there was a subsequent commission 
issued by Morton in 1574, in which, although 
he was a member, his exile in France cannot 
have admitted of his taking a leading part, 
deprive him, in the opinion of the best autho- 
rities, of the claim to the authorship of the 
whole manuscript, which has unfortunately 
been published under his name, and is known 
as * Balfour's Practicks/ the earliest text-book 
of Scottish law. The character drawn of him 
by an impartial historian is borne out by con- 
temporary authority. ' lie had served with 
all parties, had deserted all, yet had profited 
by all. He had been the partisan of every 
leader who rose into distinction amid the 
troubled elements of those times. Almost 
every one of these eminent statesmen or 
soldiers he had seen perish by a violent 
death Murray assassinated, Lethington fell 
by his own hand, Grange by that of the 
common executioner, Lennox in the field, 
Morton on the scaffold. . . . Theirs was, 
upon the whole, consistent guilt. Balfour, 
on the other hand, acquired an acuteness in 
anticipating the changes of party and the 
probable event of political conspiracy which 
enabled him rarely to adventure too far, 
which taught him to avoid alike the deter- 
mined boldness that brings ruin in the case 
of failure and that lukewarm inactivity 
which ought not to share in the rewards of 
success' (TYTLEK, Life of Cmiy, p. 105). 
Member of a house which had, in the words 
of Knox, ' neither fear of God nor love of 
virtue further than the present commodity 
persuaded them,' he was himself, in the 
briefer verdict of Robertson, ' the most cor- 
rupt man of his age.' 

[Knox's History of the Reformation ; Spottis- 
woode's History of the Church of Scotland ; 
Keith's History ; Bannatyne's Journal ; Sir 
James Melville's Memoirs ; Groodal's Preface to 
Balfour's Practicks.] M. M. 

BALFOUR, SIR JAMES (1600-1657), of 
Denmiln and Kinnaird, historian and Lyoii 
king-of-arms, the eldest son of Sir Michael 
Balfour of Denmiln in Fife, comptroller of the 
household of Charles I, and Joanna Denham, 
was born in 1 600. The youngest of the family 
was Sir Andrew Balfour [q. v.], an eminent 
botanist, the friend of Sir Robert Sibbald, 
who has written his life, along with that of 
Sir James, in a small and now scarce tract, 
' Memoria Balfouriana sive Historia rerum 
pro Literis promovendis gestarum a clarissi- 
mis fratribus Balfouriis DD. Jacobo barone 
de Kinnaird equite, Leone rege armorum, et. 



Balfour 



54 



Balfour 



DD. Andrea M.D. equite aurato, a R. S., 
M.D. equite aurato, 1699.' The family of 
this branch of the Balfours was so remark- 
able for its numbers that Sir Andrew told 
Sibbald his father had lived to see 300 de- 
scendants, and Sir Andrew himself twice 
that number descended from his father. Yet 
the male line is now extinct, and, with the 
exception of the two subjects of Sibbald's 
memoir and their brother David, who be- 
came a judge, they do not seem to have been 
men of note. After a good education at home 
Balfour was sent to travel on the continent, 
and after his return, although he had shown 
some inclination for poetry in his youth, 
when he translated the ' Panthea ' of Johannes 
Leochseus (John Leech) into Scottish verse, 
he devoted himself to the study of the his- 
tory and antiquities of Scotland. It was his 
good fortune, remarks Sibbald, to be stimu- 
lated to this line of study by the number of 
his countrymen who cultivated it at that 
time : Archbishop Spottiswoode and Calder- 
wood, the church historians; David Hume 
of Godscroft, the writer of the history of 
the Douglases ; Wishart, afterwards Bishop 
of Edinburgh, the biographer of Montrose ; 
Robert Johnston, who wrote the history of 
Britain from 1577 ; the poet Drummond of 
Hawthornden, the historian of the Jameses ; 
the brothers Pont, the geographers ; with the 
circle of friends, Sir Robert Gordon of Stra- 
loch, Sir John Scot of Scotstarvet and others, 
who contributed to the great atlas of Scot- 
land published by Blaeu at Amsterdam ; and 
Robert Maule, commissary of St. Andrews, 
a diligent antiquary and collector of the 
stamp of Balfour himself. Balfour was 
himself addicted to heraldry, and, to perfect 
himself in it, went to London in 1628, where 
he made the acquaintance of the English 
College of Heralds and Dodsworth and 
Dugdale, then the leading English historical 
antiquaries. To the ' Monasticon ' of Dug- 
dale he contributed a brief account of the 
religious houses of Scotland. On his return 
he was knighted by Charles I on 2 May 1630, 
made Lyon king-of-arms, and crowned by 
George Viscount Dupplin as king's commis- 
sioner by warrant dated 20 April 1630. He 
was created a baronet 22 Dec. 1633, and 
deprived of the office of Lyon by Cromwell 
about 1654. During the civil war he re- 
mained in retirement at Falkland or Kin- 
naird, collecting manuscripts and writing 
historical memoirs or tracts. 

As none of his works, except his ' Annals 
of the History of Scotland from Malcolm III 
to Charles II,' and a selection of his tracts 
(edited by Mr. James Maidment, 1837), have 
been printed, it is worth while to give Sib- 



bald's list of these in manuscript, most of 
which are now preserved in the Advocates r 
Library, although some were lost at the 
siege of Dundee, where they had been sent 
for safety. 

The list is as follows : 1. ' A Treatise on 
Surnames, but especially those of Scotland/ 

2. A Treatise of the Order of the Thistle.' 

3. ' An Account of the Ceremonies at the 
Coronation of Charles I at Holyrood ; ' and 

4. ' Of Charles at Scone.' 5. ' An Account 
of the Coats of Arms of the Nobility and 
Gentry of Scotland.' 6. 'A Genealogy of 
all the Earls of Scotland from their Creation 
to 1647.' 7. ' An Account of the Funeral 
Ceremonies of some Noble Persons.' 8. ' An 
Account of those who were knighted when 
he was Lyon.' 9. ' An Account of the Im- 
presses, Devices, and Mottoes of several of 
our Kings and Queens.' 10. 'The Crests, 
Devices, and Mottoes of the Scotch Nobility/ 
11. ' Injunctions by Sir James Balfour, Lyon 
King, to be observed by all the Officers-at- 
Arms.' 12. ' The True Present State of the 
Principality of Scotland/ 13. ' Lists of the 
various Officers of State in Scotland and of 
the Archbishops of St. Andrews/ 14. Me- 
morials and Passages of State from 1641 
to 1654/ 15. 'A Full Description of the 
Shore of Fife/ 16. < A Treatise on Gems and 
the Composition of False Precious Stones/ 
Besides these he wrote several miscellaneous 
works, chiefly on heraldic subjects. 

More important than the original work of 
Sir James Balfour was his diligence as a col- 
lector, which preserved, shortly after the 
dispersion of the treasures of the monastic 
libraries, many of the chronicles, cartularies, 
and registers of the Scottish bishoprics and 
religious houses, since published as the 
1 Chronicle of Melrose,' the Cartularies of 
Dunfermline, Dryburgh, Arbroath, and Aber- 
deen, the Registers of the Priory of St. 
Andrews and the Monastery of Cupar. A 
full list of these and his other manuscripts 
is given by Sibbald. His valuable library, 
along with that of his brother Sir David, 
was dispersed by auction after the death of 
the latter, and the catalogue printed at the 
close of Sibbald's memoir is a valuable record 
of the library of a Scottish gentleman in the 
seventeenth century. Balfour was four times 
married, and died in 1657, surviving his father 
only five years. He was interred in Abdie 
Church. The ' Annals ' are not of much 
value, except in that part which is contem- 
porary, and even in that they are jejune, 
preserving, however, some interesting parti- 
culars, chiefly in relation to the ceremonies 
in which he took part as Lyon king. 

[Sibbald's Memoria Balfcmriana, 1699 ; Bal- 



Balfour 



55 



Balfour 



four's Historical Works, edited by James Haig 
from the Manuscript in Advocates' Library, 
1824.] M. M. 

BALFOUR, JAMES (1705-1795), phi- 
losopher, was born at Pilrig, near Edinburgh, 
in 1705, and, after studying at Edinburgh and 
at Leyden, Avas called to the Scottish bar. He | 
held the offices of treasurer to the faculty of 
advocates and sheriff-substitute of the county 
of Edinburgh. In 1754 he was appointed to 
the chair of moral philosophy in the univer- j 
sity of Edinburgh, and in 1764 transferred 
to that of the law of nature and nations, j 
He was the author of three philosophical ! 
books : 1. ' A Delineation of the Nature \ 
and Obligation of Morality, with Reflexions j 
upon Mr. Hume's book entitled " An In- i 
quiry concerning the Principles of Morals." ' 
This book was published anonymously, the j 
first edition in 1753, the second in 1763. 



Scottish Philosophy ; Letter to the writer from 
John M. Balfour-Melville, Esq., of Pilrig and 
Mount Melville, great-grandson of Professor 
Balfour.] W. G. B. 

BALFOUR, JOHN (d. 1688), third 
LOKD BALFOUK, OP BURLEIGH, succeeded his 
father Robert, second Lord Balfour of Bur- 
leigh [q. v.], in 1663. In his youth he went 
to France for his education. In an 'affair of 
honour ' he was there wounded. He returned 
home through London early in 1649, and mar- 
ried Isabel, daughter of another scion of his 
house Sir William Balfour [q. v.] of Pit- 
cullo, Fife, lieutenant of the Tower. The 
young married pair set off for Scotland in 
March. They found the father strongly dis- 
pleased. The displeasure took the preposte- 
rous shape of asking the general assembly 
of the kirk of Scotland to annul the mar- 



riage. The petition was quietly shelved. 
. The plea for the dissolution of the tie was 

2. < Philosophical Essays, published anony- < the wol md' he still bore, and which 

mously in 1 / 68. 3. ' Philosophical Disser- ' 
tations,' published in 1782 under the au- 
thor's name. These writings are marked by 
a calm tone of good sense and good feeling, 
but are not very powerful in thought. Dr. 
M'Cosh, in his work on the ' Scottish Philo- 
sophy,' says of him : ' He sets out (in his 
" Delineation ") with the principle that 
private happiness must be the chief end and 
object of every man's pursuit ; shows how 
the good of others affords the greatest happi- 
ness ; and then, to sanction natural conscience, 
he call's in the authority of God, who must 
approve of what promotes the greatest hap- 
piness. This theory does not give morality 
a sufficiently deep foundation in the consti- 
tution of man on the character of God, and 
could not have stood against the assaults of 
Hume. ... In his " Philosophical Essays " 
he wrote against Hume and Lord Kaimes, 
and in defence of active power and liberty. 
Like all active opponents of the new scepti- 
cism, he felt it necessary to oppose the fa- 
vourite theory of Locke, that all our ideas 
are derived from sensation and reflexion.' 

Balfour's mother was a Miss Hamilton, 
of Airdrie, great-grandaunt of the late Sir 
William Hamilton, Bart., professor of logic 
and metaphysics in the university of Edin- 
burgh 1836-1856. His eldest sister married 
GaA'in Hamilton, bookseller and publisher 
in Edinburgh (also, it is believed, a member 
of the Airdrie family), whose eldest son was 
Robert Hamilton, professor of mathematics 
in Marischal College and University, Aber- 
deen, author of a treatise on the national 
debt. 



[The Imperial Dictionary of Universal Bio- 
graphy; Anderson's Scottish Nation; M'Cosh's 



paternal wrath deemed a disqualification for 
marriage. He died in 1688, leaving besides 
Robert, his heir and successor, two sons and 
six daughters. This Lord Balfour of Bur- 
leigh has been traditionally styled l Cove- 
nanter,' which he assuredly never was. On 
Sir Walter Scott must be laid the blame 
if blame it be by having appropriated the 
name and designation in his ' John Balfour 
of Burley ' in < Old Mortality.' John Bal- 
four, the ' Covenanter,' was historically ' of 
Kinloch,' not of Burleigh, and the principal 
actor in the assassination of Archbishop 
Sharp in 1679. For this crime his estate was 
forfeited and a large reward offered for his 
capture. He fought at Drumclog and at 
Bothwell Bridge, and is said to have escaped 
to Holland, and to have there tendered his 
services to the Prince of Orange. It is ge- 
nerally supposed that John Balfour of Burley 
died at sea on a return voyage to Scotland. 
But in the ' New Statistical Account of Scot- 
land,' under < Roseneath,' strong presumptions 
are stated for believing that he never left 
Scotland, but found an asylum in the parish 
of Roseneath, Dumbartonshire, under the 
wing of the Argyll family. According to 
this account, having assumed the name of 
Salter, his descendants continued there for 
many generations, the last of the race dying 
in 1815. Scott noted in his ' Old Mortality ' 
that in 1808 a Lieutenant-colonel Balfour 
de Burleigh was commandant of the troops 
of the King of Holland in the West Indies. 
[Authorities as under BALFOUR, ROBEKT, 
second Lord Balfour; Scott's Old Mortality, 
note 2, 3 ; Anderson's Scottish Nation ; Letter 
from the present Lord Balfour of Burleigh, 
Kennet.] A. B. G. 



Balfour 



Balfour 



BALFOUR, JOHN BUTTON (1808- 
1884), botanist, was born in Edinburgh on 
15 Sept. 1808, his father having been a sur- 
geon in the army, and one of his near rela- 
tives having been James Hutton, author of 
the ' Theory of the Earth.' After complet- 
ing his early education at the High School of 
Edinburgh he studied at St. Andrew's and 
Edinburgh Universities, graduating M.A. 
and M.D. Edin., the latter in 1832. He gave 
up the intention of seeking ordination in the 
church of Scotland, for which he at first 
prepared, became M.R.C.S. 1831, F.R.C.S. 
(Edin.) 1 833, and, after studying some time in 
continental medical schools, commenced me- 
dical practice in Edinburgh in 1834. He had 
previously been greatly attracted to botanical 
studies by Professor Graham's lectures and 
excursions, and continuing to enlarge his 
botanical knowledge, in 1836 he was promi- 
nent in establishing the Botanical Society of 
Edinburgh, and in 1838 the Edinburgh Bo- 
tanical Club. In 1840 he commenced to give 
extra-academical lectures on botany at Edin- 
burgh, and had considerable success. In 
1841 he succeeded Dr. (afterwards Sir) W. 
J. Hooker as professor of botany at Glasgow 
University, and thenceforward gave up me- 
dical practice. In 1845, on the death of 
Graham, Balfour became professor of botany 
at Edinburgh, and was nominated regius 
keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden and 
queen's botanist for Scotland. Becoming 
F.R.S. (Edinburgh) in 1835, he was for many 
years an active secretary of the society. For 
thirty years he was dean of the medical fa- 
culty of the university of Edinburgh, in 
which capacity he was most valuable to the 
medical school, and very popular with the 
students. His botanical excursions with pupils 
were most energetically conducted, and ex- 
tended to almost every part of Scotland. He 
ascended every important peak, and gathered 
every rarity in the flora. Under his care and 
in co-operation with the curators, the Mac- 
nabs, father and son, the Royal Botanic Gar- 
dens were much enlarged and improved, and 
a fine palm-house, an arboretum, a good mu- 
seum, and excellent teaching accommodation 
provided. He was the first in Edinburgh 
to introduce classes for practical instruction 
in the use of the microscope. He retired from 
office in 1879, when he received the title of 
emeritus professor of botany, became assessor 
in the university court for the general council, 
and each of the three universities with which 
he had been connected conferred on him the 
degree of LL.D. For many years he was 
a fellow of the Royal Society of London, 
and a member of a large number of British 
and foreign scientific societies. He died at 



Inverleith House, Edinburgh, on 11 Feb. 
1884. 

Inducted into botany before microscopical 
work had been largely developed, and before 
the advent of modern views on vegetable 
morphology and physiology, Balfour was 
almost necessarily for the most part a sys- 
tematic botanist. His original work was not 
extensive, and it is as a teacher and writer 
of text-books that he was chiefly known. 
His teaching was painstaking and conscien- 
tious, earnest and impressive, and charac- 
terised by wealth of illustration and a faculty 
of imparting his own enthusiasm. He was 
impartial in the breadth of his teaching, and 
ever anxious to assimilate new knowledge. 
His character was deeply religious, and he saw 
in the objects of nature indubitable evidences 
of a great designing mind. His geniality 
was contagious, and it is related of him 
that on his botanical excursions, as the party 
neared the habitat of some rare Alpine herb, 
the wiry and energetic professor ' Woody 
Fibre ' as they called him would outstrip 
all in' his eagerness to secure it ; and that 
in toiling up a long ascent, his jokes and 
puns would keep the whole party in good 
spirits. 

Balfour was for many years one of the 
editors of the ' Annals of Natural History r 
and of the ' Edinburgh New Philosophical 
Journal,' and contributed important articles 




stream,' Lond. 1865 ; and a ' Sketch of D. 
T. K. Drumrnond,' prefixed to ' Last Scenes 
in the Life of Our Lord,' 1878. His botanical 
text-books went through numerous editions, 
and included a 'Manual,' 1848, revised 1860; 
a ' Class Book,' 1852 ; < Outlines,' 1854: < Ele- 
ments,' 1869: a < First' and a ' Second Book/ 
with other minor manuals ; ' Botanist's Com- 
panion,' 1860; ' Botanist's Vade Mecum ; ' 
' Guide 'to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edin- 
burgh,' 1873. His ' Introduction to Palseon- 
tological Botany,' 1872, was the least suc- 
cessful of his botanical works. He wrote 
several botanico-religious books, such as 
' Phyto-Theology,' 1851, entitled in its third 
edition, ' Botany and Religion ; ' ' Plants of 
the Bible,' 1857 ; ' Lessons from Bible Plants,' 
1870. He also wrote the botany in MacCrie's 
< Bass Rock,' 1848. 

[Scotsman, 12 Feb. 1884; Athenaeum, 16 Feb. 
1884 ; Nature, 21 Feb. 1884.] G-. T. B. 

BALFOUR, NISBET(1743-1823),amost 

distinguished officer under Lord Cornwallis 
in the American war of independence, was not 
(as Draper's * American Biography ' asserts) 



Balfour 



57 



Balfour 



the son of a small bookseller in Edinburgh, 
but the last representative of the Balfours 
of Dunbog in the county of Fife. Harry 
Balfour, the first laird of Dunbog, was the 
third son of John, third Lord Balfour of Bur- 
leigh [q. v.], and in the middle of the last 
century officers had very little chance of rising 
to higher rank who were not of good family. 
He was born at Dunbog in 1743, and entered 
the army as ensign in the 4th regiment in 
1761. He was promoted lieutenant in 1765, 
and captain in 1770, but did not see service 
till the outbreak of the American war. He 
distinguished himself at the battle of Bunker's 
Hill, where he was severely wounded, and at 
Long Island and Brooklyn. In August 1776 
his services were so conspicuous at the taking 
of New York, that he was sent home with 
the despatches announcing the success, and 
was promoted major by brevet. He at once 
returned to America, and struck up a warm 
friendship with many of the younger officers, 
including Lord Cornwallis and Lord Rawdon. 
He was present at the battles of Elizabeth- 
town, Brandywine, and Germautown, and, 
after being appointed lieutenant-colonel of 
the 23rd regiment in 1778, accompanied 
Cornwallis to Charleston. After the capture 
of the city he was appointed commandant at 
Ninety-Six, and there ' by his attention and 
diligence,' says Cornwallis, succeeded in rais- 
ing 4,000 militia among the loyal colonists. 
In the following year he accepted the diffi- 
cult and invidious post of commandant at 
Charleston, and there acquitted himself to 
the complete satisfaction of Cornwallis. He 
obeyed to the letter the rigorous orders of 
Cornwallis against the colonists, and incurred 
much odium for carrying out the execution 
of a planter named Isaac Hayne, which Lord 
Rawdon had ordered. ' You have done what 
few officers in our service are capable of 
doing,' wrote Cornwallis to Balfour 011 
12 Nov. 1780, 'and have voluntarily taken 
responsibility on yourself to serve your 
country and your friend' {Cornwallis Des- 
patches, Cornwallis to Balfour, i. 46). When 
the war was over, Balfour was rewarded for 
his services with the rank of colonel and the 
appointment of aide-de-camp to the king. 
He was also appointed, with a lawyer named 
Spranger, on a commission to award the 
money granted by parliament to those loyal 
colonists who had suffered in the war. He 
now enjoyed high reputation, and moved 
in the best military society, and in 1790 
Mr. Stewart, of Castle Stewart in Wigton- 
shire, who had married his only sister, re- 
turned him to parliament for the Wigton 
Burghs. In 1793, on the outbreak of the 
war with France, he was promoted major- 



general, and received the command of a 

I brigade in the force which his old comrade, 

' Lord Rawdon, now Lord Moira, was to take 

I to the west coast of France. With the rest 

| of Lord Moira's army, Balfour joined the 

Duke of York in Flanders in 1794*. Though 

I Lord Moira returned home, Balfour volun- 

I teered to continue his services in any capa- 

1 city in which he could be useful, and assisted 

General Ralph Abercromby in commanding 

j the reserve till December 1794. He never 

again saw active service, but continued to 

! sit in parliament, first for Wigton Burghs 

and then for Arundel, till 1802. He was 

made colonel of the 39th regiment in 1794, 

and promoted lieutenant-general in 1798, 

and general in 1803. He retired to his family 

seat, Dunbog, and there died at the advanced 

age of eighty, in October 1823, being then 

sixth general in seniority after sixty-two 

years' service. He bequeathed Dunbog to 

his nephew William Stewart, who took the 

name of Balfour. His reputation was made 

in the American war, and the friendship of 

such generals as Hastings and Cornwallis 

seems to justify it. 

[For Balfour's services see the Royal Military 
Calendar. For his services in America consult 
Bancroft's History of the United States, passim, 
and the contemporary accounts of the war in 
South Carolina ; see also the Cornwallis Des- 
patches, edited by Boss, 1859. For the cam- 
paign in Flanders, see the Journals and Letters 
of Sir Harry Calvert,] H. M. S. 

BALFOUR, ROBERT (1550 P-1625 ?), 

I Scotch philosopher and philologist, is believed 
to have been born about 1550. According 
to the statement of David Buchanan, he de- 
rived his lineage from a distinguished family 
in Fifeshire, but he has himself informed us 
(Commentarius in Cleomedem, 196) that he 
was born in Forfarshire, probably near Dun- 

j dee. From a school in his native district he 
was sent to the university of St. Andrews, 
and thence he proceeded to the univer- 
sity of Paris, where he attracted much at- 
tention by the ability with which he pub- 
licly maintained certain philosophical theses 
against all oppugners. Afterwards he was 
invited to Bordeaux by the archbishop of 
that see, and there he became a member of 
the college of Guienne. He was elected pro- 
fessor of Greek, and at length, probably in 
1586, was appointed principal of the college, 
which he continued to govern for many years. 
It appears that he was alive in 1625, but the 
date of his death is not recorded. Balfour 
left behind him the character of a learned 
and worthy man, the only fault attributed 
to him by one biographer being his zealous 



Balfour 



Balfour 



adherence to the Roman catholic faith. His 
contemporary, Dempster, says he was ' the 
phoenix of his age : a philosopher profoundly 
skilled in the Greek and Latin languages ; a 
mathematician worthy of being compared 
with the ancients ; and to those qualifications 
he joined a wonderful suavity of manner, and 
the utmost warmth of affection towards his 
countrymen.' His reputation as a scholar 
rests mainly on his commentary ou Aristotle. 
The titles of his works are : 1. ' Gelasius, 
2iWay/Lia rSiv Kara TTJV cv Nucma aylav Svvndov 
TTpaxdevruv' Paris, 1599, 8vo ; Heidelberg, 
1604, fol. An edition of the Greek text, ac- 
companied by a Latin translation. Gelasius, 
with Balfour's translation, has been reprinted 
in several editions of the Concilia. 2. ' Cleo- 
medis Meteora Greece et Latine. A Roberto 
Balforeo ex MS. codice Bibliothecee Illus- 
trissimi Cardinalis loyosii multis rnendis 
repurgata, Latine versa, et perpetuo com- 
mentario illustrata.' Bordeaux, 1605, 4to. 
This work was commended by Barthius and 
other learned men, and even in the present 
century it was held in such estimation that 
it was republished by Professor James Bake 
at Leyden in 1820, 8vo. 3. l Prolegomena in 
libros Topicorum Aristotelis,' 1615, 4to. 
4. ' Commentarii in Organum Logicum Aris- 
totelis,' Bordeaux, 1618, 4to. 5. ' Commentarii 
in lib. Arist. de Philosophia tomus secundus, 
quo post Organum Logicum, qusecumque in 
libros Ethicorum occurrunt difficilia, dilucide 
explicantur,' Bordeaux, 1620, 4to. 

[Buchanan, De Scriptoribus Scotis, 129 ; 
Dempster, Hist. Ecclesiastica Gentis Scotorum, 
119 ; Irving's Lives of Scottish Writers (1839), 
i. 234-46; Anderson's Scottish Nation, i. 217 ; 
Chambers's Biog. Diet, of Eminent Scotsmen, ed. 
Thomson, i. 68 ; Cat. of Printed Books in Brit. 
Mus.] T. C. 

BALFOUR, ROBERT (d. 1663), second 
LOED BALFOTJR OF BURLEIGH, military com- 
mander, was son of Sir Robert Arnot of Fernie, 
chamberlain of Fife. He married Margaret, 
daughter of Michael Balfour of Burleigh 
and Margaret, daughter of Lundie of Lundie, 
and his wife succeeded her father (who was 
created 7 Aug. 1606 Lord Balfour of Bur- 
leigh) as Baroness Balfour of Burleigh. 
Thereupon, by aletter from the king (James I) 
Arnot became Lord Balfour of Burleigh, 
the second holder of the title. At the as- 
sembly of the Scottish parliament in 1640 
(11 June) the 'estates' appointed him their 
president. He was continued in the office 
in 1641, and was one of the commissioners 
for a treaty of peace with England in 1640-1. 
He was also constituted of the privy council 
' ad vitam aut culpani ' by the parliament of 



Scotland 11 Nov. 1641. During the wars of 
Montrose he was energetic on the side of the 
government. He assumed military com- 
mand, but was not successful. Montrose 
defeated him 12 Sept. 1644 near Aberdeen, 
and again (with General Baillie) at Kilsyth, 
15 Aug. 1645. He was opposed to the cele- 
brated and unfortunate ' engagement ' to 
march into England for the rescue of the 
king. He had weight enough to dissuade 
Cromwell then from the invasion of Scot- 
land. In 1649, under the act for putting 
'the kingdom in a posture of defence,' he 
was one of the colonels for Fife. He was 
further nominated in the same year one of 
the commissioners of the treasury and ex- 
chequer. He died at Burleigh, near Kinross, 
10 Aug. 1663. His wife died before him (in 
1639). They had one son [see BALPOTTK, 
JOHN, third Lord Balfour of Burleigh] and 
four daughters. 

[Lament's Annals, MS.; Balfour's Annals, MS.; 
Douglas's Peerage of Scotland, by Wood, 2 vols. 
folio, 1813; George Crawford's Peerage of Scot- 
land, 1716, folio, pp. 53-4; Sibbald's Kinross and 
Fife ; Anderson's Scottish Nation.] A. B. Gr. 

BALFOUR, ROBERT (d. 1757), fifth 
LORD BALFOUR or BURLEIGH, Jacobite, when 
a youth fell in love with a i pretty face,' far 
inferior in rank, much to the annoyance of 
the family. He was sent to travel abroad 
in the hope that he would forget his attach- 
ment. Before he set out he declared to his 
lady-love that if in his absence she married 
he should kill her husband. Notwithstanding 
the threat, she did marry a Henry Stenhouse, 
schoolmaster at Inverkeithing, acquainting 
him beforehand of the hazard. On Balfour's 
return his first inquiry was after the girl. 
On being informed of her marriage, he pro- 
ceeded on horseback (with two attendants) 
directly to the school at Inverkeithing, 
called Stenhouse out, deliberately shot him 
(wounding him in the shoulder), and quietly 
returned to Burleigh. This was on 9 April 
1707. The poor schoolmaster lingered twelve 
days, and tlien died. Balfour was tried for 
the murder in the high court of justiciary on 
4 Aug. 1709. The defence was ingenious, but 
inadequate. He was brought in guilty, and 
sentenced to be beheaded on 6 Jan. 1709-10. 
But a few days prior to this he escaped from 
the prison (' Heart of Midlothian ') by exchang- 
ing clothes with his sister, who resembled him. 
He skulked for some time in the neighbour- 
hood of Burleigh, and a great ash-tree, hollow 
in the trunk, was long shown as his place of 
concealment. On the death of his father, in 
1713, the title devolved on him. His next 
appearance was at the meeting of Jacobites 



Balfour 



59 



Balfour 



at Lochmaben, 29 May 1714, when ' the 
Pretender's ' health was drunk at the cross, 
on their knees, Lord Burleigh denouncing 
damnation against all who would not drink 
it. He engaged in the rebellion of 1715. 
For this he was attainted by act of parlia- 
ment, and his estates forfeited to the crown. ! 
He died, without issue, in 1757. 

[Anderson's Scottish Nation ; Maclaurin's Cri- j 
minal Trials : Rae's History of the Rebellion.] 

A. B. GK 

BALFOUR, SIR WILLIAM (d. 16GO), \ 
\iiarJi p ar li amen tary general, of the family of Bal- 
. four of Pitcullo, Fifeshire, appears to have , 
' been born before the accession of James I 
back to the English throne, for in 1642 he ob- 
, , stained a naturalisation bill (Lords' Journals, 
28 May 1642). He entered the Dutch ser- 
vice and continued in it till 1627. In that 
year he became lieutenant-colonel in the 
Earl of Morton's regiment, took part in the 
expedition to the isle of Rhe, and was noticed 
as being one of the officers most favoured by 
the Duke of Buckingham (FoESTEE, Life of 
Eliot, ii. 78). In January 1628 he was 
charged by the king, in conjunction with 
Colonel Dalbier, to raise 1,000 horse in 
Friesland, but the suspicions this project 
aroused in the Commons obliged the king to 
abandon the plan, and to assure the house 
that these troops were never meant to be 
employed in England. On the death of Sir 
Allen Apsley, Sir "William, who is described 
as one of the gentlemen of the king's privy 
chamber, was appointed governor of the 
Tower (18 Oct. 1630, Cal S. P., Dom.). In 
October 1631 he was employed on a confi- 
dential mission to the Netherlands. He also 
received many other marks of the king's 
favour, including the grant of a lucrative 
patent for making gold and silver money in 
the Tower (1633). Nevertheless Balfour, 
' from the beginning of the Long parliament, 
according to the natural custom of his 
country, forgot all his obligations to the 
king, and made himself very gracious to 
those people whose glory it was to be thought 
enemies to the court ' (CLARENDON, iv. 147). 
Perhaps religious motives had something to 
do with this change of parties, for Balfour 
was a violent opponent of popery, and had 
once beaten a priest for trying to convert his 
wife (Straffbrd Corr. ii. 165). Strafford was 
entrusted to Balfour's keeping, and though 
offered 20,000/. and an advantageous match 
for his daughter, he refused to connive at 
the earl's escape, or to admit Captain Bil- 
lingsley and his suspicious levies to the 
Tower (2 May 1641, RTJSHWORTH, iii. i. 250). 
The king, therefore, persuaded or obliged 



Balfour to resign his post in the following 
December. The accounts given of the causes 
of this resignation differ considerably (CLA- 
RENDON, iv. 101 ; GARDINER, History of 
England, x. 108 ; and the pamphlet entitled 
A Terrible Plot against London and West- 
minster}. When the parliament raised an 
army Sir William was appointed lieutenant- 
general of the horse, under the nominal com- 
mand of the Earl of Bedford. He com- 
manded the reserve at Edgehill, broke several 
regiments of the king's foot, and captured 
part of his artillery. Ludlow describes 
him spiking the king's guns with his own 
hands, and all accounts agree in praise of 
his services. He did not take part in the 
first battle of Newbury, having gone abroad 
to try the waters on account of his health 
(Lords' Journals, 2 Aug. 1643). In the 
spring of 1644 he was detached from the 
army of Essex with 1,000 horse to reinforce 
Waller, and shared the command at the vic- 
tory of Alresford. His letter of 30 March 
1644 to Essex, relating the battle, was or- 
dered to be printed. He then rejoined Es- 
sex, accompanied him into Cornwall, and 
took Weymouth and Taunton (June 1644). 
When the infantry was forced to surrender, 
he broke through the king's lines, and ' by 
an orderly and well-governed march passed 
above 100 miles in the king's quarters/ 
and succeeded in joining General Middleton. 
At the second battle of Newbury he com- 
manded the right wing of the parliamentary 
horse (see Manchester s Quarrel with Crom- 
well, Gainden Society; and the letters signed 
by Balfour, p. 55). This was Balfour's last 
public exploit ; with the organisation of the 
new model he retired from military service. 
The House of Commons appointed a com- 
mittee ' to consider of a fit recompense and 
acknowledgment of the faithful services done 
by him to the public ' (21 Jan. 1645), and the 
House of Lords voted the payment of his 
arrears (7,000/.) and specially recommended 
him to the Commons (21 July). But some 
intercepted correspondence seems to have 
awakened suspicions and caused delay sin this 
payment (see Commons' Journals, 25 March 
and 12 April 1645). SMVfflwm Balfottr's 



[Clarendon's History of the Kebellion ; Vicars's 
Parliamentary Chronicle ; Calendar of Domestic 
State Papers; Ricraft's Champions (1647) con- 
tains a portrait and panegyric of Sir William 
Balfour (No. xviii.); in the Strafford Correspon- 
dence (vol. i. 88, 97, 120) are some passages 
which appear to prove that Balfour was indebted 
to the king's favour for the Irish estate -which 
he is said to have purchased from Lord Balfour 
of Clonawley.] C. H. F. 



a ytf 



Balfour 



#" BALFOUR, WILLIAM (4*35-1838), 
f ' * lieutenant-colonel, was a boy-ensign in the 
40th foot at the Helder, and won the ap- 
fjf d -f proval of Sir John Moore. He served on 
the staff of Major-general Brent Spencer in 
the Mediterranean and at the capture of 
Copenhagen, and received a brevet lieu- 
tenant-colonelcy for service in the field with 
the 40th in the Peninsula and south of France 
in 1813-14. After a few years on half-pay, 
he became lieutenant-colonel of his old regi- 
ment, commanding it for several years in New 
South Wales, and he was afterwards in com- 
mand of the 82nd foot in Mauritius. He 
retired from the army in 1832, and died in 
February 1838. 

[Army Lists ; London Gazettes ; (rent. Mag. 
1838.] H. M. C. 

BALGUY, CHARLES, M.D.(1708-1767), 
physician, was born at Derwent Hall, Derby- 
shire, in 1708, and was educated at Chester- 
field grammar school and St. John's College, 
Cambridge, where he took the degree of M.B. 
in 1731, and M.D. in 1750. He practised at 
Peterborough, and was secretary of the lite- 
rary club there. He contributed to the ' Philo- 
sophical Transactions ' (No. 434, p. 1413), and 
in 1741 he published, anonymously, a trans- 
lation of Boccaccio's 'Decameron.' This has 
been several times reprinted, and is the only 
good translation in English. He wrote some 
medical essays, and particularly a treatise 
* De Morbo Miliari ' (Lond. 1758). He died 
at Peterborough 28 Feb. 1767, and was buried 
in the chancel of St. John's Church, where 
is a marble monument to his memory, de- 
scribing him as ' a man of various and great 
learning.' The statement that he translated 
the ' Decameron ' is evidenced by the notes 
of his school friend, Dr. Samuel Pegge, in the 
College of Arms, who expressly mentions the 
fact. 

[Pegge's Collections in the College of Arms, 
vol. vi. ; Derbyshire Archaeological Journal, vi. 
11 ; Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, vi. 4, 74, 122.] 

S. 0. A. 

BALGUY, JOHN (1686-1748), divine, 
was born 12 Aug. 1686 at Sheffield. His 
father, Thomas, who was master of the 
Sheffield grammar school, died in 1696, and 
was succeeded by Mr. Daubuz, under whom 
John Balguy studied until admitted at St. 
John's College, Cambridge, in 1702. He 
wasted two years in reading romances, but 
upon meeting with Livy turned to classical 
studies. He graduated as B.A. in 1705-6 
and M.A. in 1726. Upon leaving Cambridge 
he taught for a time in the Sheffield gram- 
mar school, and 15 July 1708 became tutor 



Balguy 



to Joseph Banks, son of Mr. Banks of Scof- 
ton in Nottinghamshire, and grandfather of 
the famous Sir Joseph Banks. In 1710 he 
was ordained deacon, and in 1711 priest, by 
Sharp, archbishop of York ; and in the last 
i year entered the family of Sir Henry Liddel, 
of Ravensworth Castle, Durham, who pre- 
sented him to the small livings of Lamesby 
and Tanfield. He wrote a new sermon 
every week for four years, and afterwards 
burnt 250 sermons in order that his son 
might be forced to follow the example of 
original composition. In 1715 he married 
Sarah, daughter of Christopher Broomhead, 
of Sheffield, and left Sir H. Liddel to settle 
in a house of his own, called Cox-Close, in 
the neighbourhood. In 1718 he took part in 
the Bangorian controversy, defending Hoad- 
ley against Stebbing. Bishop Hoadley and the 
booksellers who thought that the public 
were tired of the subject induced him to 
desist after publishing two pamphlets ; and 
Hoadley persuaded him also to suppress in 
1720 a letter to the famous Dr. Clarke which 
it was thought might injure the doctor's 
chances of preferment, though dealing with 
the purely philosophical question of natural 
immortality. Balguy was a disciple and 
admirer of Clarke, and his chief publications 
were in defence of Clarke's philosophical and 
ethical doctrines. They are : ' A Letter to 
a Deist,' 1726, in which he attacks Shaftes- 
bury ; ' The Foundation of Moral Goodness,' 
1728, which is an answer to Shaftesbury's 
disciple, Hutcheson, and argues, after Clarke, 
that morality does not depend upon the in- 
stincts or affections, but upon the ' unalter- 
able reason of things.' A second part, pub- 
lished in 1729, is a detailed reply to the 
criticisms of a friend (Lord Darcy, as the 
younger Balguy tells us), who had defended 
Hutcheson. In 1730 he published ' Divine 
Rectitude,' in which he argued that ' the 
first spring of action in the Deity ' was ' rec- 
titude ; ' whilst Mr. Grove declared it to be 
1 wisdom,' and Mr. Bayes to be ' benevolence.' 
It was followed by 'A Second Letter to a 
j Deist,' defending Clarke against Matthew 
I Tindal's ' Christianity as Old as the Crea- 
| tion,' and by a pamphlet called ' The Law of 
1 Truth, or the Obligations of Reason essential 
j to all Religion.' These tracts were collected 
j in a volume dedicated to Hoadley. In 1741 
I appeared < An Essay on Redemption,' of a 
! rationalising tendency, and considered by 
Hoadley to be stronger in the ' demolishing ' 
than the ' constructive ' part. He also pub- 
lished (1727- 8) an essay and sermon upon 
party spirit. Two volumes of his sermons 
were published in 1748 and 1750 (NICHOLS, 
Anecdotes, iii. 220, and ix. 787). 



Balguy 



61 



Baliol 



On 25 Jan. 1727 Balguy was collated by 
Hoadley to a prebend in Salisbury, and 
through the friendship of Bishop Talbot 
obtained from the chapter of Durham (12 
Aug. 1729) the vicarage of Northallertoii in 
Yorkshire, worth 270/. a year. He had 
many friends in all parties, including- Bi- 
shops Benson, Butler, and Seeker, and Lord 
Harrington. His tracts, which are terse and 
well written, are all applications of the 
principles of which Clarke is the chief ex- 
ponent. He became an invalid, and saw 
little society except at Harrogate, which he 
frequented, and where he died, 21 Sept. 
1748, leaving an only child, Thomas [see 
BALGUY, THOMAS] living. 

[Life by son in Biog. Britannica ; Nichols's 
Anecdotes, iii. 139, 220, ix. 787.] L. S. 

BALGUY, THOMAS (1716-1785), di- 
vine, son of John Balguy [q. v.], was born 
at Cox-Close 27 Sept. 1716, educated at the 
Ripon Free School, and admitted to St. 
John's College, Cambridge, about 1732 ; was 
B.A. 1737, M.A. 1741, S.T.P. 1758. He was 
elected to a Platt fellowship at St. John's in 
March 1741, which he held till 1748. In 
1744 he became assistant tutor to his friend 
Dr. Powell, tutor, afterwards master of St. 
John's College, and gave lectures on moral 
philosophy and the evidences ' for sixteen 
years.' In 1743 he was deputy public 
orator, and in 1758 tutor to the Duke of 
Northumberland. He states in his father's 
' Life ' that he owed all his preferments to 
' the favour and friendship of Bishop Hoadley,' 
who had given his father a prebend of Salis- 
bury. His father, as prebendary, presented him 
(1748) to the rectory of North Stoke, near 
Grantham in Lincolnshire, which he vacated 
in 1771 on becoming vicar of Alton in Hamp- 
shire. Through Hoadley's influence he ob- 
tained a prebend of Winchester in 1 758, and 
became archdeacon of Salisbury in 1759, 
and afterwards archdeacon of Winchester. 
Thomas was, however, less of a latitudinarian 
than his father, and opposed the agitation for a 
relaxation of the articles. In 1769 he pub- 
lished a sermon upon the consecration of j 
Bishop Shipley (NICHOLS, Anecdote*, ix. 
534), which was answered by Priestley in 
' Observations upon Church Authority.' In 
1772 he published an archidiacoiial charge, 
in which lie defended subscription to articles 
of religion ; and in 1775 a sermon at the 
consecration of Bishops Hurd and Moore, 
which was answered in remarks l by one of 
the prebendary clergy.' In 1775 lie edited 
the sermons of his friend Dr. Powell, with a 
* life ' of the author ; and in 1782 l Divine 
Benevolence asserted,' part of an unfinished 



treatise on natural religion. In 1785 he re- 
published his father's essay on Redemption, 
\ and a collection of sermons and charges. 
Balguy Avas one of the admiring disciples of 
Warburton, and his name frequently appears 
in Warburton's correspondence with Hurd. 
On Warburton's death in 1781 he declined 
the appointment to the vacant bishopric of 
Gloucester on the ground of failing health 
and approaching blindness, and died 19 Jan. 
1795 at his prebendal house at Winchester. 
A monument to him is in the south aisle of 
the cathedral. His discourses, edited by 
Rev. James Drake (a relation to whom his 
manuscripts were bequeathed), were repub- 
lished at Cambridge in 1820. 

[Chambers's Dictionary ; "Warburton's Letters 
to Hurd; Nichols's Anecdotes, iii. 220, viii. 157, 
and elsewhere; Nichols's Illustrations, iii. 516; 
Preface to Discourses by Drake.] L. S. 

BALIOL, ALEXANDER DE (ft. 1246 ?- 
1309 ?), lord of Cavers and chamberlain of 
Scotland, is one of the members of the Baliol 
family about whose pedigree great confusion 
exists. He Avas certainly not Alexander, 
son of Hugh Baliol of Barnard Castle, an 
elder brother of John Baliol the king, for 
this Alexander died in 1279 Avithout issue, 
leaving a widow, Eleonora de Genovra (Ry- 
MER'S Fcedera, i. 10, 779). It is probable, 
but not certain, that he was the same person 
as Alexander de Baliol, the son of Henry de 
Baliol, chamberlain of Scotland, who died 
in 1246, and Lora or Lauretta de Yaloines, 
the coheiress along with her sister Christian, 
Avife of Peter de Maule of Panmure, of the 
fiefs of the Yaloines family in England. If so 
he can be traced in the records of Hertford- 
shire betAveeii 6th and 32iid EdAvard I in con- 
nection with the manor of Benington in that 
county, Avhich he inherited through his mo- 
ther (CLUTTERBFCK'S Hertfordshire, vol. ii.). 
This identification AA^ould account for his ap- 
pointment to the office of chamberlain of 
Scotland, Avhich had been held by his father, 
his great-grandfather, William de Berkeley, 
Lord of Reidcastle, and one of his maternal 
ancestors, Peter de Yaloines. But there are 
tAvo difficulties attending it. Alexander de 
Baliol the chamberlain is never mentioned 
as possessing Reidcastle in Forfarshire, the 
estate of Henry de Baliol, and it is difficult 
to account for his constant association Avith 
the estate of CaA'ers in TeA'iotdale, and not 
with any English fiefs. Possibly the latter 
circumstance is due to the references being* 
in the Scottish records. It appears that in 
32 Edward I (1304) Benningtoii was sold 
by Alexander de Baliol to John de Bin- 
sted, and the conjecture seems admissible 



Baliol 



Baliol 



that Baliol may have made Scotland the j 
chief place of his residence, though retaining 
English fiefs in right of his mother and his 
wife. His preference for Scotland would 
be confirmed by his succession to the high 
office which his father Henry had held. 
"Whatever may be thought of this hypothesis, 
it is certain that Alexander de Baliol _ the 
Scottish chamberlain first appears asDominus 
de Cavers in the Scottish records in 1270. { 
Seven years later he was commissioned, as 
lord of Cavers, to serve in Edward's Welsh 
wars. In 1284, under the same designation 
of Dominus de Cavers, he was one of the 
Scottish barons who bound themselves to 
receive Margaret, the Maid of Norway, as 
queen in the event of failure of male issue 
of Alexander III ; and as, in the same year, 
he received a summons to attend Edward's 
army, he must still have retained English 
fiefs. In 1287 he is for the first time men- 
tioned in a writ by the guardians of Scotland 
as chamberlain of Scotland, an office in 
which he succeeded John Lindsay, bishop of j 
Glasgow. Two years later he took part in | 
the negotiations which resulted in the treaty 
of Salisbury, 6 Nov. 1289, confirmed by the 
parliament at Brigham 14 March 1290, by i 
which Edward the Prince of Wales was to | 
marry Margaret, and Edward I solemnly re- , 
cognised the independence of Scotland. Her , 
death prevented the marriage, and Edward 
soon forgot or ignored his engagements. On 
5 June 1291 Baliol and his wife Isabella de 
Chilham, widow of David de Strathbogie, 
earl of Athol, received a letter of attorney 
and safe conduct from Edward permitting 
them to remain for a year in Scotland. He 
still continued to hold the office of chamber- 
lain after the seisin of Scotland had been ; 
given to Edward I, as the condition of his I 
determining the suit as to the succession of 
the crown of Scotland ; but in the beginning 
of 1292 we find Robert Heron, rector of I 
Eord, associated with Baliol in this office, j 
and as a writ of 1 Feb. of that year men- 
tions that Heron's wages had been granted 
to him by the King of England, it appears 
reasonable to conclude that Heron had been 
appointed to control Baliol in the execution 
of the office. On 30 Dec. 1292 certain of 
the records of Scotland which had been in 
the hands of Edward were redelivered to 
Alexander Baliol as chamberlain of Scot- 
land. Baliol is last mentioned as chamber- 
lain on 16 May 1294, and it seems probable 
that the disputes between Edward and John 
Baliol led to his deprivation by the English 
king after or perhaps even before the cam- 
paign of 1296, when Edward forced John 
Baliol to resign the crown and carried him 



captive to England. In 1297 John de Sandale, 
an English baron, appears as chamberlain of 
Scotland. From entries in the accounts of 
the expenses of John Baliol when a prisoner 
in England with reference to a horse of 
Alexander de Baliol, it would seem that he 
shared the captivity of his kinsman. On 
13 Jan. 1297 Edward made a presentation to 
the church of Cavers, upon the ground that 
the lands of Alexander de Baliol were in his 
hands. A few scanty notices between 1298 
and 1301 indicate that he took part on the 
English side in the war with Scotland ; and 
from one of these we learn that he had 
manors in Kent, the wood of which he re- 
ceived the king's license to sell. 

Amongst the barons present at the siege 
of Caerlaverock in 1300 was 

Mes Alissandres de Bailloel, 
Ke a tout bien fere mettoit le oel, 
Jaime baniere avoit el champ 
Al rouge escu voidie du champ. 

In 1303 he seems to have shown symptoms 
of again falling off from the English side, 
for his chattels in Kent, Hertfordshire, and 
Roxburghshire were in that year seized by 
Edward ; but we find him employed, in May 
1304, in Edward's service in Scotland, and in 
the first year of Edward II he was summoned 
to join John de Bretagne, earl of Richmond, 
in the Scottish campaign. 

His estates in Kent, of which the chief 
was the castle and manor of Chilham, were 
held by him in right of his wife Isabella de 
Chilham, by whom he left a son of his own 
name. The date of his death is unknown, 
but as he was summoned to all the parlia- 
ments of Edward I between 1300 and 1307, 
and is not mentioned as summoned to any 
of Edward II, he probably died soon after 
the accession of that monarch. His son 
Alexander had a son, Thomas de Baliol of 
Cavers, who sold that estate to W r illiam, 
earl of Douglas, in 1368, and is the last 
of the Baliols who appears in the Scottish 
records. 

[Exchequer Eolls of Scotland, i. ; Documents 
illustrative of the History of Scotland, edited by 
Sir F. Palgrave; Historical Documents Scotland, 
1286-1306, edited by Kev. J. Stevenson; Acts 
Parl. Scotland, Kecord edition, vol. i. ; Dugdale's 
Baronage ; Surtees' History of Durham ; Clut- 
terbuck's History of Hertfordshire ; Crawford's 
History of the Officers of State of Scotland.] 

JE.SL 

BALIOL, BERNARD DE, the elder 
(fl. 1135-1167). There is great difficulty in 
fixing with precision the early history of the 
family of Baliol, which was destined to play so 
ill-omened a part in the annals of Scotland, a 



Baliol 



Baliol 



circumstance which no doubt contributed to 
the obscurity of its records and the extinc- 
tion of its name. The founder of the house 
in England was the Norman baron Guido or 
Guy de Baliol, whose French fiefs of Bailleul, 
in the department of L'Orne, two leagues 
from Argent on, Dampierre, Harcourt, and 
Vinoy, in Normandy, were long retained by 
his descendants, and afforded a refuge when 
their English inheritance was forfeited along 
with the Scottish crown, which John wore 
so short a time and Edward failed to re- j 
cover. Guy is said, in a manuscript on which 
Surtees, the historian of Durham, relies, to 
have come ' to England with the Conqueror, 
and to him gave AVilliam Rufus the barony 
of Bywell in Northumberland, and the forests 
of Teesdale and Charwood, with the lordship 
of Middleton in Teesdale and Gainsford, with 
all their royalties, franchises, and immuni- 
ties ' (Solves MS., SURTEES Durham, iv. 50). 
Bernard or Barnard Baliol is stated by the 
same manuscript to have built ' the fortress 
which he called Castle Barnard, and created 
burgesses and endowed them with the like 
franchises and liberties as those of Rich- 
mond,' a statement corroborated by the ancient j 
and noble ruin which still overhangs the Tees, 
with ' its uttermost walls of lime and brick ' 
and l innermost cut in rocks of stone,' as the ! 
ballad runs, and by the charter of his son, a | 
second Bernard, which confirms his father's j 
grant to the burgesses (SURTEES, iv. 71). In I 
1135 the first Bernard did homage, along i 
with David I of Scotland, to the Empress j 
Matilda, daughter of Henry I, but prior to 
the battle of the Standard, 1138, he re- ' 
nounced his homage and joined the party of j 
Stephen. Along with Robert de Bruce, Lord ! 
of Annandale, a common interest then uniting j 
the ancestors of the future rivals, he was 
sent before the battle by the northern barons 
to make terms with David I, but without ' 
success. Continuing to support Stephen, I 
Bernard de Baliol was taken prisoner with j 
him at Lincoln on 2 Feb. 1141. The charter 
of the second Bernard, still preserved, is 
unfortunately without date, and there is 
no charter-evidence to fix his father's death, 
but a fine exacted in 14 Henry II (1167), 
for neglecting to certify the number of his 
knights' fees, is assumed with probability by 
Surtees to refer to the time of his succes- 
sion, and to make the fact which history re- 
cords of the capture of William the Lion at 
Alnwick in 1174 by a Bernard de Baliol 
along with other northern barons applicable 
to the second and not the first bearer of the 
name. 

[Dugdale's Baronage, corrected by Surtees' 
Durham, iv. 51.] &. M. . 



BALIOL, BERNARD DE, the younger 
(jft. 1167). Dugdale does not recognise a 
second Bernard, but for the reasons stated in 
the last article, the opinion of Surtees appears 
preferable, though it must be admitted that 
his existence rests on the evidence of one 
charter and the improbability of a single life 
having covered the period from 1135, when 
the first Bernard must have at least attained 
majority, to nearly the close of the century. 
This Bernard joined Robert de Stuteville, 
Odonel de Urnfraville, Ranulf de Glanville, 
and other northern barons, who raised the 
siege of Alnwick and took William the Lion 
prisoner in 1174. Our only further informa- 
tion about him consists of grants to various 
abbeys, one of which, to Rievaulx, was 
' for the good of his own soul and that of his 
consort Agnes de Pinkney,' and the confirma- 
tion of the privileges granted by his father 
to the burgesses of Barnard Castle. He was 
succeeded by his son Eustace, whose ex- 
istence is only known from charters of which 
the earliest, dated in 1190, is a license to 
marry the widow of Robert Fitzpiers for a 
fine of 100 marks. He was succeeded about 
1215 by his son Hugh, the father of John de 
Baliol I, whose son was John de Baliol II, 
king of Scotland. 

[Dugdale's Baronage and Monasticon Angli- 
canum ; Surtees' Durham, iv. 51-2.] JE,. M. 

BALIOL, EDWARD DE (d. 1363), king 
of Scotland, the eldest son of John de Baliol, 
king of Scotland, and Isabel, daughter of 
John de Warenne, earl of Surrey, on his 
father's death in 1314 succeeded to his French 
fiefs, on which he lived till 1324, when he 
was invited by Edward II to England, which 
he again visited in 1327, with the view of 
being brought forward as a pretender to the 
Scottish crown. A more favourable oppor- 
tunity presented itself after the death of 
Robert Bruce in 1329. Baliol was again 
summoned to England 20 July 1330, with 
permission to remain as long and return as 
often as he pleased in order that prepara- 
tions might be made for the invasion of Scot- 
land. Placing himself at the head of the 
disinherited barons whose lands had been 
forfeited by Bruce for their adherence to 
England, of whom the chief were Henry 
de Beaumont, Gilbert de Umfraville, and 
Thomas, Lord Wake of Liddell, and a small 
force of 400 men-at-arms and 3,000 foot, 
Baliol sailed from Ravenspur, near the mouth 
of the Ilumber, and landed at Kinghorn, 
in Fife, on 6 Aug. 1332. The death of 
Randolph, the valiant regent who found 
a feeble successor in Donald, earl of Mar, 
gave Baliol an advantage he was prompt 



Baliol 



Baliol 



to seize. After defeating the Earl of Fife, 
who opposed his landing, he marched by 
Dunfermline to the river Earn, surprised 
and routed Mar at Dupplin Moor with great 
slaughter on 12 Aug., and took possession 
of Perth. A threatened blockade of that 
town by the Earl of March having been 
abandoned, Baliol was crowned at Scone 
on 24 Sept. by William Sinclair, bishop of 
Dunkeld. Leaving Perth in clvirge of the 
Earl of Fife, who soon surrendered it to the 
Scotch, Baliol marched towards the border, 
and at Roxburgh on 23 Nov. met Edward III, 
acknowledged him as superior and lord of 
Scotland, and bound himself to serve in all 
his wars. He further engaged to put him in 
possession of Berwick and to marry the prin- 
cess Johanna, already betrothed to David II. 
It was soon seen how fragile was his tenure 
of the country he affected to dispose of, for 
on 16 Dec. he was surprised at Annan by 
Archibald Douglas and completely defeated. 
His brother Henry was slain, and he had 
himself difficulty in escaping across the 
English border. In the following year, 
9 March 1333, with additional aid from | 
England, Baliol returned and established 
his camp near Roxburgh, with the view of 
besieging Berwick. The Scots lost about 
this time the services of two of their bravest 
leaders, Sir Andrew Murray of Bothwell, 
and Sir William Douglas, the knight of 
Liddesdale, and Edward, having himself ad- 
vanced with a great force to the siege of 
Berwick, defeated Archibald Douglas, who 
had succeeded to the chief command, at 
Halidon Hill on 12 July, which forced the 
capitulation of Berwick. 

In February 1334 Baliol held a parliament 
at Edinburgh, where, on the 12th of that 
month, his engagements to Edward were 
renewed and Berwick was annexed to the 
English crown. Not satisfied with this 
severance of the great fortress which was 
the key to the borders from the Scottish 
kingdom, Edward demanded and Baliol j 
agreed at Newcastle-on-Tyne to the absolute 
surrender to the English crown of the ' 
forests of Jedburgh, Selkirk, and Ettrick, 
the counties of Roxburgh, Peebles, Dumfries, 
and Edinburgh, the constabularies of Had- j 
dington and Linlithgow, with all the towns 
and castles in the territory annexed. This 
comprised the whole of ancient Lothian, the 
richest and most important part of Scotland. 
Edward at once parcelled it into sheriffdoms, j 
and appointed a chamberlain and justiciary j 
for Lothian. On 18 June he received the 
homage of Baliol for the whole kingdom of 
Scotland, and, as if to mark the ignominy of , 
his vassal with a deeper stain, declared that j 



his private estates were not to be understood 
as falling within the surrender of the rights 
of his country. In the autumn of this year 
a dispute as to the succession of Alexander 
de Mowbray, one of the disinherited barons, 
between his brother as heir male, who was 
at first supported by Baliol, and his daughter 
as heir general, whose cause was espoused 
by Henry de Beaumont, earl of Buchan, and 
David de Hastings, earl of Athole, exposed 
the weakness of Baliol, who was compelled 
to change sides and abandon Mowbray through 
fear of these powerful earls. The return of 
Sir Andrew Murray from England, and of 
the Earl of Moray, now acknowledged as 
regent on behalf of David II, gave able leaders 
to the Scottish patriots, and Baliol was forced 
to take refuge in England. In winter he 
was again brought back, rather than restored, 
by the aid of Edward, and after wasting 
Annandale celebrated Christmas at Renfrew, 
where he created William Bullock, an eccle- 
siastic, chamberlain of Scotland. In July of 
the following year Edward again invaded 
Scotland, and although the fortunes of war 
were not all on one side, Guy, count of 
Narnur, a mercenary ally of Edward, being- 
defeated on the Borough Muir and forced 
to leave Scotland, the capture of the Earl of 
Moray and the aid of the Mowbrays and 
others enabled Edward to conclude a treaty 
at Perth 18 Aug. 1335, by which the 6arl of 
Athole and all who submitted to the English 
king were to be pardoned for their rebellion, 
and the ancient laws and usages of Scotland 
as in the days of Alexander III restored. 
Athole, who was named lieutenant of Scot- 
land, now espoused the side of Baliol, but 
was soon after surprised and slain by the 
Earl of March, William Douglas of Liddes- 
dale, and Sir Andrew Murray, in the forest 
of Kilblain. Baliol succeeded in detaching 
John, the lord of the Isles, from the national 
cause by ceding to him Cantire and Knap- 
dale in Argyle, and several of the principal 
Hebrides, along with the wardship of the 
young heir of Athole, on 12 Dec. 1335. A 
loan of 300 marks by Edward on 16 Oct. 
1335 and a daily pension of 5 marks during 
pleasure, granted on 27 Jan. 1336, indicated 
the poverty and dependence of Baliol. The 
command of the English troops was given 
not to Baliol but to the Earl of Lancaster. 
In August Edward himself suddenly re- 
turned to Perth, which was the chief fortress 
held by Baliol, and overran the north-east of 
Scotland. After establishing a weak line 
of forts from Dunottar to Stirling and rein- 
forcing the garrison of Perth, he returned to 
England, leaving his brother, the Earl of 
Cornwall, in command. Sir Andrew Murray 



Baliol 



Baliol 



made an ineffectual attempt to take Stirling, ! with his golden crown, in return for an 
but succeeded in reducing the more northern obligation of payment of 5,000 marks and 
forts after Edward's departure. In the spring a pension of 2,000/. which Edward granted 
of the following year, 1337, he took Falk- on the previous day at Bamborough. This 
land, Leuchars, and St. Andrews in Fife, was the last of Baliol's acts as king ; but his 
Cupar alone holding out under the corn- ignoble life lasted till 1367, when he died 
mand of Bullock, Baliol's chamberlain. By without issue at Wheatley, near Doncaster, 
a sudden diversion to the west he surprised where, during his last years, ' reft of the 
and took Bothwell Castle, and, having thus , crown, he still might share the chase/ as is 
secured the passage of the Clyde, made a proved by the writs granting him a license to 
raid into Cumberland, and on his return in- ! sport in the royal forests and pardon to some 
vested but did not take Edinburgh. In 1338 of the neighbouring gentry who joined in his 
this gallant commander, who had upheld amusement. Except for the brief period of 
the cause of Scottish independence for forty his success at the head of the disinherited 
years, since he was associated with Wallace barons at Dupplin Moor, he showed no quali- 
against Edward I, died. Robert, the steward | ties worthy of respect in a warlike age. His 
of Scotland, succeeded him as regent, and ; character was similar to that of his father, 
prepared for the siege of Perth, where Baliol j unequal to the honour and peril of a crown, 
still was, and Edward, having no confidence ! and content to survive the disgrace of doing 
in his military talents, required him to en- j what lay in his power to sacrifice the inde- 
trust its custody to Sir Thomas Ughtred, an I pendence of his country. 
English commander. 



Before the end of the 

year Baliol, who had borne no part of any 
moment in the war nominally conducted on 
his behalf, but really for that of Edward, 
retired to England. There he appears to have 
remained until the defeat and capture of 
David II at Neville's Cross, 17 Oct. 1346, 
encouraged him again to return to Scotland. 
Taking up his residence at Caerlaverock 
Castle, on the Solway, and aided by English 
men-at-arms under Percy and Neville, he 



[Kymer's Fcedera, vol. iii. ; Fordun's and 
Wyntotm's Chronicles give the events of his life 
from the Scottish, Knyghton, Adam of Muri- 
muth, and Walsingham from the English side. 
Lord Hailes's Annals is still the fullest and most 
accurate modern account of this period of Scottish 
history, but Tytler's History of Scotland and 
Longman's History of the Eeign of Edward III 
may also be consulted with advantage.] 

M. M. 

BALIOL, HENRY DE (d. 1246), cham- 



made a raid as far as Glasgow, wasting Niths- | berlain of Scotland, was the son of Ingelram 
dale and Cunningham. The title, but not j and grandson of Bernard de Baliol, of Barnard 
the contents, of a treaty in this year between Castle. His mother was daughter and heiress 
Lionel, duke of Clarence, son of Edward III, 
and Percy and Neville, has been preserved, 
which makes it probable that the ambitious 
prince had set on foot the intrigue for his 



succession to the Scottish crown with Baliol 
which was afterwards renewed with David II. 
Meanwhile the Scots had accepted Robert 
the Steward, grandson of Robert the Bruce 
on the mother's side, as regent ; and though 
the English king in official documents con- 
tinues to style Baliol 'our dear cousin 
Edward, king of Scotland/ he negotiated at 
the same time with his captive, David II, 
and finally, in 1354, released him for the 
large ransom of 90,000 marks, by annual 
instalments of 10,000, on non-payment of 
which he was to return to prison at Berwick 
or Norham. The Scotch preferring the 
French alliance and failing to pay the instal- 
ment due in 1355, David honourably sur- 
rendered himself, and in 1356 Edward mus- 
tered a large force for the subjugation of 
Scotland. Before he set out Baliol at Rox- 
burgh, on 21 Jan., made an absolute surrender 
of the whole kingdom of Scotland to Edward 
by delivery of a portion of its soil along 

VOL. III. 



of William de Berkeley, lord of Reidcastle 
in Forfarshire, and chamberlain of Scotland 
under William the Lion in 1165. William 
de Berkeley was succeeded in this high office, 
not yet divided into those of the treasurer 
and comptroller, and entrusted with the su- 
perintendence of the whole royal revenues, by 
Philip de Valoines and his son William de 
Valoines, lords of Panmure. The latter died 
in 1219, leaving only a daughter, and Henry 
de Baliol, who had married his sister Lora, 
obtained the chamberlainship which had been 
held by the father both of his mother and his 
wife. Although invited by King John to 
take his side shortly before Magna Charta, it 
is probable that, like his sovereign, Alexan- 
der II, he joined the party of the barons. He 
is mentioned in the Scottish records in various 
years between 1223 and 1244, and the ap- 
pointment of Sir John Maxwell, of Caerla- 
verock, who appears as chamberlain in 1231, 
must either have been temporary, or Baliol 
must have retained the title after demitting 
the office, which Crawford (Officers of State, 
p. 261) supposes him to have done in 1231. 
In 1234 he succeeded, in right of his wife as 



Baliol 



66 



Baliol 



coheiress, along with Christian de Valoines, j 
her niece, wife of Peter de Maule, ancestor of > 
the Maules of Panmure, to the English fiefs i 
of the Valoines, vacant by the death of j 
Christian, countess of Essex, a rich inheri- j 
tance, situated in six shires. In 1241 he at- j 
tended Henry III to the Gascon war, and, i 
dying in 1246, was buried at Melrose. It is j 
probable, but not certain, that Alexander de 
Baliol of Cavers, also chamberlain of Scotland j 
[see BALIOL, ALEXANDER DE], was his son. 
His only daughter, Constance, married an 
Englishman of the name of Fishburn. 

[Documents in Panmure Charter Chest ; 
Act. Parl. Scot. i. 403 a, 4056, 4076, 4086; 
Chronicle of Melrose ; Dugdale's Baronage ; 
Crawford's Lives of Officers of State, p. 260.1 



BALIOL, JOHN DE (d.1269), of Barnard 
Castle, founder of Balliol College, Oxford, 
was the son of Hugh, the grandson of Eustace, 
and the great-grandson of Bernard de Baliol 
the younger [q. v.]. He married Devorguila, 
one of the daughters of Alan of Galloway, 
constable of Scotland, by Margaret, eldest 
daughter of David, earl of Huntington, brother 
of William the Lion. In his own right and 
that of his wife, coheiress of two great in- 
heritances, Baliol was one of the wealthiest 
barons of his time, possessing, it is said, as 
many as thirty knights' fees in England, be- 
sides one-half of the lands of Galloway; 
though his possession of the latter must have 
been precarious during the reign of Alexan- 
der II, who favoured the claim of Roger de 
Quincey, husband of Helen, the elder daughter 
of Alan of Galloway, to the whole, while the 
Galwegians supported Alan's natural son, 
Thomas de Galloway. According to the 
Chronicle of Lanercost, Thomas de Galloway, 
being taken prisoner in 1235, was committed 
to the custody of Baliol, who kept him in 
the dungeons of Barnard Castle, where he 
remained until, in extreme old age, he was 
released at the instance of Edward I. 

Baliol was one of the regents of Scotland 
during the minority of Alexander III, but was 
deprived of that office and his lands forfeited 
for treason in 1255, when a new regency was 
appointed through the influence of Henry III. 
Making terms with that monarch, Baliol es- 
caped the consequences of his forfeiture, and 
sided with Hem*y in the barons' war (1258- 
65). He was taken prisoner at Lewes, but, 
having been released, did all that was in his 
power to support the royal cause, along with 
the barons of the north, against Simon de 
Montfort. About the year 1263 he gave the 
first lands for the endowment of the college 
at Oxford, which received his name, and this 



endowment was largely increased by his will, 
and after his death by his widow, Devorguila. 
He died in 1269, leaving three sons, Hugh, 
Alexander, and John, who succeeded to the 
family estates by the death of his elder bro- 
thers, without issue, and afterwards became 
king of Scotland. Devorguila survived her 
husband, dying 28 Jan. 1290. There is a 
writ in the ' Memorial Rolls of Edward I,' 
dated 1 June 1290, ordering the customary 
inquisition after her death. 

[Historical Documents, Scotland, 1286-1406, 
arranged by Rev. J. Stevenson, i. 155 ; Acts Parl. 
Scotland, vol. i. ; Fordun ; Chronicle of Laner- 
cost. The work of Henry Savage, master of Baliol 
j College, entitled Balio-Fergus, Oxford, 1664, is 
j untrustworthy as to the Baliol genealogy, but 
| gives some interesting particulars as to the en- 
I dowments of the college by the Baliols, and its 
j first statutes made by Devorguila.] M. M. 

BALIOL, JOHN DE (1249-1315), king 
of Scotland, was the third son of the pre- 
ceding John de Baliol, of Barnard Castle, 
and Devorguila, daughter of Alan of Gal- 
loway. His elder brothers, Hugh and Alex- 
ander, having died without issue in 1271 
and 1278, John succeeded to the large in- 
heritance of the Baliols of Barnard Castle in 
Northumberland, Hertfordshire, Northamp- 
ton, and other counties, as well as to their 
Norman fiefs, and in right of his mother to the 
lordship of Galloway. Prior to the disputed 
succession which arose after the death of 
Alexander III, Baliol scarcely appears in 
history ; but by an inquest as to the extent 
of the vill of Kempston, in Bedfordshire, in 
1290, we learn that he was forty years of 
age in the year preceding, and was then 
served heir to his mother Devorguila, who 
died on 28 Jan. 1290. He also then suc- 
ceeded to other manors in England, Fother- 
ingay and Driffield. On 16 Nov. 1290 John 
Baliol, already styling himself ' heres regni 
Scotiae,' grants to Antony Beck, bishop of 
Durham, the manors which Alexander III 
held in Cumberland, or the sum of five 
hundred marks if Edward I did not confirm 
the grant. On the death of Margaret, the 
Maid of Norway, grandchild of Alexander 
III, on 7 Oct. 1290, no less than thirteen 
claimants presented themselves for the crown 
of Scotland ; but of these only three seriously 
contested the succession. John de Baliol 
claimed in right of his maternal grandmother, 
Margaret, the eldest daughter of David, earl 
of Huntingdon, brother of William the Lion, 
and grandson of David I. Robert Bruce, 
earl of Annandale, claimed in right of his 
mother, Isabel, the second daughter of the 
same earl; and John Hastings claimed in 
right of his grandmother, Ada, the third 



Baliol 



Baliol 



daughter. The claim of Bruce was rested 
mainly on his being one degree nearer in 
descent ; that of Baliol on his descent from 
the eldest daughter; and that of Hastings 
on the ground that the kingdom was part- 
ible, as an estate, among the descend- 
ants of the three daughters. By the prin- 
ciples of modern law the right of Baliol 
would be incontestable ; but these principles 
were not then settled, and it was deemed a 
fair question for argument by feudal lawyers 
of the thirteenth century. But what tri- 
bunal was competent to decide it ? At an 
earlier period it would have been submitted 
to the arbitrament of war. The parliament 
or great council of Scotland, which had 
already begun, in the reigns of the Alex- 
anders, to organise itself after the English 
model, or by development from the Curia 
Regis, might have seemed the natural tri- 
bunal, but this would have been only a pre- 
liminary contest before the partisans of the 
rival claimants resorted to arms. The legal 
instinct of the Norman race, to which all 
the competitors belonged, suggested or ac- 
quiesced in a third course, not without pre- 
cedent in the graver disputes of the later 
Middle Ages a reference to a third party ; 
and who could be more appropriate as a 
referee than the great monarch of the neigh- 
bouring kingdom, to whom each of the com- 
petitors owed allegiance for their fiefs in 
England ? This course was accordingly pro- 
posed by Fraser, bishop of St. Andrews, in 
a letter to Edward before Margaret's death, 
but when the news of her illness had reached 
Scotland. After some delay, caused by the 
death of Eleanor, the mother of Edward I, 
that monarch summoned a general assembly 
of the Scottish and English nobility and 
commons to meet him at Norham on 10 May 
1291. Its proceedings were opened by an 
address from Roger de Brabazon, chief justice 
of England, who declared that Edward, 
moved by zeal for the Scottish nation, and 
with a desire to do justice to all the com- 
petitors, had summoned the assembly as the 
superior and direct lord of the kingdom of 
Scotland. It was not Edward's intention, 
the chief justice explained, to assert any un- 
due right against any one, to delay justice, 
or to diminish liberties, but only, he repeated, 
as superior and direct lord of Scotland, to 
afford justice to all. To carry out this in- 
tention more conveniently, it was necessary 
to obtain the recognition of his title as supe- 
rior by the members summoned, as he wished 
their advice in the business to be done. 
The Scottish nobles asked for time to consult 
those who were absent, and a delay of three 
weeks was granted. When the assembly 



again met, on 2 June, at the same place, the 
nobles and clergy admitted Edward's supe- 
riority, but the commons answered in terms 
which have not been preserved, but are de- 
scribed by an English annalist as l nihil 
efficax,' nothing to the purpose. No atten- 
tion was paid to their opinion, and another 
address, reiterating Edward's superiority, was 
delivered by the Bishop of Bath and Wells, 
who called on the competitors to acknow- 
ledge his right, and their willingness to abide 
by the law before their lord Edward. This 
was done by all who were present, and by 
Thomas Randolph as procurator for Baliol, 
who was absent. Next day Baliol attended 
and made the acknowledgment in person. 
The acknowledgment was embodied in a 
formal instrument signed by all the competi- 
tors on 4 June, which declared their consent 
that Edward should have seisin of the land 
and castles of Scotland pending the trial, 
upon the condition that he should restore 
them two months after its decision. Im- 
mediately after the recognition of his supe- 
riority, and the seisin given in ordinary 
feudal form, Edward surrendered the custody 
of Scotland to the former regents, adding 
Brian Fitzallan to their number, and ap- 
pointing Alexander de Baliol chamberlain 
and the Bishop of Caithness chancellor. 
The castles were delivered to Edward's offi- 
cers, Umfraville, earl of Angus, alone re- 
fusing to give up Dundee until promised an 
indemnity. On 15 June Baliol and Bruce, 
along with many other barons and the regent, 
took the oath of fealty to Edward, and his 
peace having been proclaimed as superior 
of Scotland, the proceedings were adjourned 
to 2 Aug. at Berwick. Before the adjourn- 
ment the court for the trial of the succession 
was appointed, consisting of twenty-four 
Englishmen appointed by Edward and forty 
Scotchmen by Baliol and Bruce respectively. 
The court met on the appointed day, and the 
competitors put in claims, but only three 
were pressed by Bruce, Baliol, and Hastings. 
After the petitions had been read there was 
another adjournment to 2 June 1292. The 
question was then raised by what law the 
case was to be determined, whether by 
the imperial laws or by the law of England 
and Scotland, and if the latter differed, by 
which. The commissioners asked time to 
consider the point, and at their next meet- 
ing, on 14 Oct. declared that the king ought 
to decide according to the law of the king- 
dom over which he reigned if there were any 
applicable, and if not make a new law with 
the advice of his council. They added that 
the same principles should govern the suc- 
cession to the crown as that to earldoms, 

F2 



Baliol 



68 



Baliol 



baronies, and other indivisible inheritances. 
Bruce and Baliol now gave in their pleadings. 
The former rested his claim (1) on a decla- 
ration of Alexander II in his favour at a 
time when he had no issue ; (2) on the law 
of nature, which he alleged preferred the 
nearer in degree as heir ; (3) on certain pre- 
cedents derived from the Celtic law of tan- 
istry, by which the brother had been pre- 
ferred to the son as nearer in degree in the 
succession to the Scottish crown : (4) on 
similar instances in other countries, where 
the direct line of descent had been passed 
over; and (5) on the impossibility of suc- 
cession through a female, as Baliol's claim 
was based on the right of his mother, Devor- 
guila. To these arguments Baliol answered 
(1) that Alexander's declaration was only in ! 
the event of his having no issue, an event 
which had not occurred ; (2) that the feudal 
law and not the law of nature was appli- 
cable ; (3) that the cases in which a brother 
had been preferred to a son were inapplicable, 
for a son was nearer to his father than his 
father's brother, so that these cases told the 
other way, and were precedents for preferring 
the more remote degree ; (4) that whatever 
might be the law in other countries, the 
feudal law of England and Scotland recog- 
nised representation in the elder line in suc- 
cession to earldoms and baronies ; and (5) 
that the argument against descent through 
females was equally adverse to the claim of 
Bruce, who also claimed through his mother. 

The commissioners decided in Baliol's fa- 
vour, declaring ' that by the laws and usages 
of both kingdoms in every heritable succes- 
sion the more remote by one degree lineally 
descended from the eldest sister was prefer- 
able to the nearer in degree issuing from the 
second sister/ and on 6 Nov. Edward con- 
firmed their decision. 

A question which had been nominally re- 
served, whether the kingdom was partible, 
was now taken up, and decided in the nega- 
tive, and on 17 Nov. 1292 the final judgment 
was pronounced: 'As it is admitted that the 
kingdom of Scotland is indivisible, and as 
the king of England must judge the rights of 
his own subjects according to the laws and 
usages of the kingdom over which he reigns, 
and as by those of England and Scotland in 
the succession to indivisible heritage the more 
remote in degree of the first line of descent 
is preferable to the nearer in degree of the 
second, therefore it is decreed that John 
Baliol shall have seisin of the kingdom of 
Scotland.' 

Two days later the seal used by the re- 
gents was broken, and they were ordered to 
give seisin to Baliol. On 20 Nov. he swore 



fealty to Edward at Norham upon Scottish 
ground, on the 30th he was crowned at Scone r 
and within a month, on 26 Dec., he did 
homage to Edward at Newcastle. 

There is no reason to doubt the justice of 
the decision between the competitors ; and if 
the rules of descent were uncertain in such 
a case before, this solemn decision, after 
careful argument, aided in fixing the prin- 
ciple of representation and the preference for 
the senior line of descent. But the acknow- 
ledgment of Edward's title as superior, which 
the necessities of the case had wrung from 
the competitors and the barons, was a dif- 
ferent matter. It was attempted to be sup- 
ported by returns obtained from the English 
monasteries and religious houses of prece- 
dents dating back to Saxon times of a similar- 
recognition: but no returns were sought from 
Scotland, while those received were evidently 
prepared to suit the wishes of Edward. The- 
earlier precedents from Saxon times and from 
the reigns of Canute, William the Conqueror, 
and Rufus were instances of isolated con- 
quests of brief duration and doubtful extent. 
No mention is made of the more recent points 
in the long-protracted controversy, the sur- 
render of all such claim by Richard Cceur 
de Lion in the treaty of Canterbury, or the 
treaty of Salisbury, by which Edward him- 
self had acknowledged the independence of 
Scotland, or the refusal of Alexander III to 
do homage. A further consequence of the 
recognition of Edward's title as superior, 
which had apparently not been foreseen by 
Baliol, but can scarcely have been overlooked 
by the astute feudal lawyers who counselled 
Edward, or by that monarch, was soon brought 
to light. As Edward was superior, an appeal 
lay from the court of his vassal Baliol to 
his own court at Westminster. Within six 
months after the decision in favour of Baliol 
a burgess of Berwick, Roger Bartholomew, 
presented such an appeal. Baliol in vain re- 
ferred to the clause of the treaty of Salisbury, 
by which no Scotch cause was to be heard 
out of Scotland, and he was compelled to 
make an implicit surrender of the right to 
independent jurisdiction. Shortly after he 
was himself summoned in a suit at the in- 
stance of Macduff, earl of Fife, to appear 
before the judges at Westminster, and declin- 
ing to attend he was condemned for con- 
tumacy in October 1293, and it was ordered 
that three of his castles should be seized 
to enforce the judgment. He again yielded, 
and promised to appear at the next English 
parliament to answer in the suit. He ac- 
cordingly attended the parliament held in 
London in May 1294, but either quitted it 
suddenly to avoid being compelled to take- 



Baliol 



6 9 



Baliol 



part in the French war then in contempla- 
tion, for which offence his English fiefs were 
forfeited, as is stated by John of Walsingham, 
or granted the revenue of these for three 
years as an aid to the English king, accord- 
ing to the more common account of the Eng- 
lish chroniclers, consenting, at the same time, 
to surrender Berwick, Roxburgh, and Jed- 
burgh to the English king. The Scottish 
writers attribute Baliol's quarrel with Edward 
to his being required to plead in person in 
Macduffs suit, and other indignities put 
upon him when in England. Whatever the 
precise cause alleged, the real question at 
stake was the independence of Scotland; 
and on his return to Scotland Baliol or his 
parliament determined to brave the displea- 
sure of the English monarch. The sum- 
mons addressed to him and his barons to 
end men to the French war were treated 
with contempt; and at a parliament at 
Scone all the English at Baliol's court were 
-dismissed, the fiefs held by the English for- 
feited, and a council of four bishops, four 
earls, and four barons appointed to advise 
or control Baliol. 

Next year an alliance with Philip the 
Fair was made, by which the French and 
Scotch kings promised to aid each other in 
the event of an English invasion of their 
respective countries, and Philip agreed to | 
give his niece, Isabel de Valence, the daughter j 
of the Count of Anjou, in marriage to Baliol's 
heir. In 1296, Edward having invaded Gas- 
cony, the Scotch proceeded to carry out their j 
part of the treaty, and with a large force, 
headed by six earls and not by Baliol in person, 
ravaged Cumberland, but failed to take Car- 
lisle. This was towards the end of March, 
and Edward, with his usual promptness, be- 
fore the close of the month advanced in 
person with a better disciplined army to j 
the eastern border, and stormed Berwick j 
(30 March). While there Henry, abbot of ! 
Arbroath, brought him a formal renuncia- i 
tion of Baliol's homage and fealty, which [ 
had been agreed upon by the Scottish parlia- j 
ment. In words of Norman French, pre- 
served by the Scottish chroniclers, Edward 
exclaimed, ' Has the foolish fellow done such 
folly ? If he does not wish to come to us, 
we shall go to him.' No time was lost in 
the execution of the threat. On 28 April 
liis general, John de Warenne, earl of Surrey, 
captured I) unbar; in May Roxburgh and 
Jedburgh surrendered ; and in June Edin- 
burgh Castle was taken by Edward himself. 
Stirling, Perth, and Scone yielded without 
resistance, and on 7 July, in the churchyard 
of Stracathro,in Forfarshire, Baliol renounced 
his alliance with the French king, and three 



days later, at Brechin, Baliol gave up his 
kingdom to Antony Beck, bishop of Durham, 
as the representative of the English king, 
and, apparently on the same day, appeared 
before Edward, who was then at Montrose, 
and delivered to him the white rod, the usual 
feudal symbol of resignation by a vassal of 
his fief into the hands of his superior. (The 
notary's instrument, dated Brechin, 10 July, 
is printed by Stevenson, * Documents illus- 
trative of Scottish History,' ii. 61, and the 
surrender at Montrose, of the same date, is 
in the ' Diary of Edward's Scottish Cam- 
paign,' ii. 28.) Edward went as far north as 
Elgin, ending his triumphant progress there 
on 26 July. 'He conquered the realm of 
Scotland,' says a contemporary diary, ' and 
searched it within twenty-one weeks without 
any more.' But the conquest was rather of 
Baliol than of Scotland ; for although Ed- 
ward took the oaths of the leading men in 
the districts he passed through, he did not 
remain to confirm his victories. By 22 Aug. 
he had returned to Berwick, carrying with 
him the coronation-stone of Scone, the re- 
galia of Scotland, and the black rood, sacred 
as a supposed relic of the cross of Christ, 
and as the gift of Queen Margaret. At 
Berwick Edward convened a parliament for 
Scotland, and received the homage of all 
who attended. He allowed the nobility who 
submitted to retain their estates, and con- 
ferred on the clergy the privilege of free 
bequest they had not hitherto enjoyed in 
Scotland ; after appointing officers of state 
as his deputies, of whom Earl Warren, as 
guardian of Scotland, was the chief, and 
entrusting the castles to English custodians, 
he returned to London. 

John Baliol and his son Edward were car- 
ried as captives to England, and remained 
prisoners, at first at Hertford and after 
August 1297 in the Tower, until 18 July 
1299, when, on the request of the pope, they^ 
were liberated. Placed under the custody of 
Raynald, bishop of Vicenza, the delegate sent 
by the pope to make peace between France 
and England, Baliol pledged himself to live 
where the pope ordered. After various 
wanderings to Wissant, Cambrai, Chatillon, 
in November 1302, Baliol took refuge on his 
French estates, where he led an obscure life 
until his death, without making the slightest 
effort to recover the kingdom he had lost. 
For a time he was regarded as its virtual 
sovereign, and when Wallace, by his valour 
and generalship, roused the patriotism of his 
countrymen, abandoned by the king and most 
of the nobles, and drove out the English, 
recovering for a brief space the independence 
of Scotland, he governed under the tittle of 



Baliol 



Ball 



'guardian of the realm of Scotland and 
leader of its army in the name of Lord John 
(Baliol), by the consent of the community.' 
But in the future of Scotland, whether pro- 
sperous or adverse, John Baliol had no longer 
any share. The war of independence, the 
careers of Wallace and Bruce, grandson of 
the competitor who better understood the 
temper of the Scottish people and became 
their king, lie outside of the biography of 



the more impartial English histories of Hallain, 
Pearson, and Green, and Pauli, Geschichte von. 
England, vol. iv.] JE. M. 

BALL, SIR ALEXANDER JOHN 

(1757-1809), rear-admiral, of an old Glou- 
cestershire family, and not improbably a lineal 
or collateral descendant of Andrew Ball, the 
friend and companion of Blake, after serving 
for some time in the Egmont with Captain 



Baliol. He died early in 1315 at Castle I John Elphinstone, was on 7 Aug. 1778 pro- 
Galliard, in Normandy, according to tradi- I moted to the Atalanta sloop as lieutenant, 
tion, blind, and probably about sixty-five 



years of age, of which four only had been 



and served in her on the North American 
and Newfoundland stations till May 1780. 

spent on the throne and fifteen in exile. By On 17 Aug. 1780 he joined the Santa Monica, 
his wife Isabel, daughter of John deWarenne, a frigate lately captured from the Spaniards, 
earl of Surrey, he left, besides other children, and went in her to the West Indies, where 
a son Edward, who succeeded to his French in April 1781 he had the good fortune to be 
estates, and made an attempt to recover the moved into the Sandwich, Sir George Rod- 
Scottish crown [see BALIOL, EDWARD DE]. ney's flag-ship, and followed the admiral to 
The Scots gave to Baliol the byname of the : the Gibraltar, for a passage to England. 
'Toom Tabard ' ('Empty Jacket '), or 'Tyne j There he was appointed to Sir George's new 
Tabard ' ( l Lose Coat '), as the English gave flag-ship, Formidable, on 6 Dec. 1781, went 
John that of Lackland. His Christian name j out with him again to the West Indies, and 
of John was not allowed to be borne by John, served with him in his great victory of 12 April 
earl of Carrick, who, when he succeeded, ! 1782. Two days afterwards he received his 
took the title of Robert III. A tradition of commander's commission and was appointed 
late origin and doubtful foundation grew up j to the Germain, in which he continued on 
that his family name, owing to his impotent the same station until posted on 20 March 
character and abandonment of his country, ! 1783. Very shortly after his return to Eng- 
became so discredited that those who in- \ land he, like many other naval officers, went 
herited it took the name of Baillie, a common j over to France on a year's leave, partly for 
one, while that of Baliol is an unknown economy whilst on half-pay, partly with a 
name in modern Scotland. The retreat of view to learning the language. Nelson, then 
the head of the family from Barnard Castle a young captain, was one of those who did. 
to Normandy, and the extinction of its prin- the same, and was at St. Omer whilst Ball 
cipal cadet, the Baliols of Cavers, in 1368, I was there. He wrote to Captain Locker 
sufficiently account for the disappearance of on 2 Nov. 1783 : ' Two noble captains are 

here Ball and Shepard : they wear fine 
epaulettes, for which I think them great 
coxcombs. They have not visited me, and I 
shall not, be assured, court their acquaint- 
ance.' Epaulettes were not worn in our navy 
till 1795, but in France they marked the rank, 



the name. 

[The documents relative to the trial of the 
succession to the crown of Scotland are printed 
by Sir F. Palgrave in Documents and Eecords 
illustrating the History of Scotland, preserved 
in the treasury of her Majesty's Exchequer, 1837, 
but his commentary on them is to be accepted 
with reserve, as that of a partisan of Edward. 
For the other facts in the life of Baliol, reference 
must be made to the ordinary histories, of which 
the chief English chronicles are those of Bishanger, 
Hemingford, and John of Walsingham. The 
Scottish authorities, Barbour's Bruce, Wyntoun's 
' 



and possibly enough were found to serve in 
lieu of letters of introduction. On 4 Nov. 
1784 Ball, writing from Gloucester, reported 
himself as having returned from foreign 
leave. He continued, however, on half-pay r 
notwithstanding his repeated applications to- 
the admiralty, till July 1790, when, on the 



i -p, i , ~., . , > / ' LUC uuiiiirai L y , 1111 juiy it o\j. vviieii, uu IHH 

and Forduns Chronicles are of somewhat later j occasion of ^ g ^ arm ; me nt, he was 
u.ate. come important documents are contained .L i j_ .1-1 - <no j? 

in Documents illustrative of the History of Scot- I a TO nt d tO the ^f 6818 ' ** % S > a ^f? t& 
land, 1286-1306, edited by Rev J Stevenson ! ^^ he commanded on ^ home station 
Eymer's Fcedera, ii., and Eyley's Placita The i for the next three y ears> He was tlien a P~ 
best modern authorities are Lord Hailes's Annals j P. omted to tne Cleopatra, 32 guns, and con- 
and the Histories of Tjtler and Burton. The j tinned for the three following years on the 
anonymous Life of Edward I, the greatest of the ; Newfoundland station under Vice-admiral 
Plantagenets, represents the English view of the | Sir Richard King and Rear-admiral Murray* 
origin of the war of independence in an extreme He was then transferred to the Argonaut, 
form, which should Le corrected by reference to 64 guns, and returned to England in August 



Ball 



Ball 



1796. On his arrival he was appointed to 
the Alexander, 74 guns, and spent the fol- j 
lowing winter off Brest, under the command 
of Vice-admiral Colpoys. Some little time i 
afterwards he was ordered out to join Lord j 
St. Vincent off Cadiz, and in the beginning ' 
of May 1798 was sent into the Mediterranean j 
under the orders of Sir Horatio Nelson. When ; 
he went on hoard the Vanguard to pay his 
respects, Nelson, perhaps remembering his 
pique of fifteen years before, said, 'What, 
are you come to have your bones broken ? ' 
Ball answered that he had no wish to have j 
his bones broken, unless his duty to his king i 
and country required it, and then they should , 
not be spared. The Vanguard, with the Orion j 
and Alexander, sailed from Gibraltar on , 
9 May, and on the 21st, oft* Cape Sicie, was 
dismasted in a violent gale of wind. Her j 
case was almost desperate, and after she was 
taken in tow by the Alexander the danger j 
seemed so great that the admiral hailed 
Captain Ball to cast her off. Ball, however, 
persevered, and towed the ship safely to St. ! 
Pietro of Sardinia. Sir Horatio lost no time j 
in going on board the Alexander to express i 
his gratitude, and, cordially embracing Cap- j 
tain Ball, exclaimed ' A friend in need is a 
friend indeed ! ' (Nelson's Despatches, iii. 21 n). \ 
It was the beginning of a close and lifelong 
friendship, which took the place of the former 
jealousy ; and Nelson, being reinforced by a 
considerable squadron, proceeded to look for 
the French fleet, which he found and de- 
stroyed in Aboukir Bay on 1 Aug. The t 
Alexander and Swiftsure had been detached j 
in the morning to look into Alexandria, and 
did not get into the action till two hours i 
after its commencement, when they found 
themselves directly opposed to the French 
flag-ship 1'Orient, which blew up about ten 
o'clock. The fire has been supposed to have 
been kindled by some combustible missiles of 
the nature of fire-balls, which the 1'Orient 
and all the French ships had on board, and 
it was probably from misunderstanding Cap- 
tain Ball's description of this that Coleridge 
framed the extraordinary story of the ship j 
having been set on fire by some inflammable 
composition which Ball had invented, and 
which was thrown on board from the Alex- 
ander. In this there is certainly not one 
word of truth ; for at that time the whole i 
feeling of the English navy was intensely op- 
posed to all such devices. On 4 Oct. 1798 
Ball was ordered to go to Malta and insti- j 
tute a close blockade of the island. The 
blockade then begun was continued without 
intermission for the next two years, when 
the French garrison, having suffered the direst 
extremities of famine, was compelled to capi- 



tulate. The force employed in the siege was 
exceedingly small. On shore there were not 
more than 500 marines, English and Portu- 
guese, and some 1,500 of the Maltese, who 
hated the French and were devoted to Ball. 
Ball, on his part, devoted himself to their 
interests. He left the Alexander in charge 
of her first lieutenant, and personally took 
command of the militia. The garrison was 
reduced entirely by famine, which pressed 
almost as severely on the islanders as on the 
French. They might indeed have starved 
with the French, had not Ball on his own 
responsibility sent the Alexander to Girgenti 
and seized a number of ships which were 
laden with corn and lying there, with strin- 
gent orders from the Neapolitan court not to 
move. 

After the reduction of Malta, Ball was for 
some time commissioner of the navy at Gib- 
raltar, at which place Nelson wrote to him 
from the Baltic on 4 June 1801 : ' My dear, 
invaluable friend, . . . believe me, my heart 
entertains the very warmest affection for you, 
and it has been no fault of mine, and not a 
little mortification, that you have not the 
red ribbon and other rewards that would 
have kept you afloat ; but as I trust the war 
is at an end, you must take your flag when 
it comes to you, for who is to command our 
fleets in a future war ? . . . I pity the poor 
Maltese ; they have sustained an irreparable 
loss in your friendly counsel and an able 
director in their public concerns ; you were 
truly their father, and, I agree with you, 
they may not like stepfathers. . . . Believe 
me at all times and places, for ever your sin- 
cere, affectionate, and faithful friend.' Ball's 
services were, however, soon after rewarded, 
not, indeed, with a red ribbon, but with a, 
baronetcy, and he was appointed governor ol 
Malta, where he spent the remainder of his 
life, and where, after his death, which took 
place on 20 Oct. 1809, his remains were in- 
terred. Notwithstanding Nelson's wishes and 
often expressed advice, he virtually retired 
from the naval service, and though in course 
of seniority he became rear-admiral in 1805, 
he never hoisted his flag. His affectionate 
care of the Maltese was considered by many 
of the English settlers and place-seekers 
impolitic and unjust, but he maintained 
throughout that we had won the island 
largely by the aid of the Maltese, and that 
we held it by their free-will, as fellow -sub- 
jects and fellow-citizens. By the Maltese he 
was adored. When he appeared in public the 
passengers in the streets stood uncovered till 
he had passed ; the clamours of the market- 
place were hushed at his entrance and then 
exchanged for shouts of joy and welcome. 



Ball 



Ball 



With Nelson he maintained to the last a 
familiar and most affectionate correspon- 
dence, the expressions of which on Nelson's 
part are frequently almost feminine in their 
warmth. Nelson habitually wrote as he 
felt at the moment, and for good or evil his 
language dealt largely in superlatives; but 
through the many letters which during the 
last seven years of his life he wrote to Sir 
Alexander Ball, there is not a trace of any 
feeling but the strongest affection. On Sir 
Alexander's death the title descended to his 
son, William Keith Ball, but is now extinct. 
An admirable portrait of Ball by H. W. 
Pickersgill, R.A., is in the Painted Hall at 
Greenwich, to which it was presented in 1839 
by Sir W. K. Ball. 

[Official Papers in the Record Office ; Nicolas's 
Despatches of Lord Nelson, passim see Index 
at end of vol. vii. ; Coleridge's Friend ' The Third 
Landing Place ' is an apotheosis of Ball, in which 
the truth is so overlaid by the products of ima- 
gination or misunderstanding and by palpable 
absurdities, that its biographical value is ex- 
tremely slight.] J. K. L. 

BALL, ANDREW (d. 1653), captain in 
the navy, is believed to have been a native 
of Bristol ; but of his family and early life 
there is no certain account. The first official 
mention of his name is as captain of the Ad- 
venture in 1648, when Vice-admiral Batten 
carried part of the fleet over to Holland to 
join the Prince of Wales. Ball was one of 
those who stayed with Sir George Ayscue, 
and who afterwards, 25 Sept. 1648, signed 
the manly refusal to desert what they con- 
sidered the cause of the nation (Life ofPenn, 
i. 265). During 1649 he was employed in 
the Channel, cruising off the Lizard or Land's 
End for the safeguard of merchant ships 
against pirates and sea-rovers, and on 21 De- 
cember was ordered specially ' to attend 
Rupert's motions.' In November 1650, still 
in the Adventure, he was selected to accom- 
pany Captain Penn to the Mediterranean 
[see PENN, SIK WILLIAM], and continued 
absent on that voyage for nearly sixteen 
months, arriving in the Downs on 1 April 
1652. During the following summer he was 
engaged in fitting out the Antelope, a new 
ship only just launched, and in September 
was sent to Copenhagen in command of a 
squadron of eighteen ships. The King of 
Denmark, on some misunderstanding about 
the Sound dues, had laid an embargo on 
about twenty English merchant ships that 
were in Danish harbours, and it was hoped 
that the appearance of a respectable force 
would at once remove the difficulty. They 
sailed from Yarmouth on 9 Sept., and 
on the 20th anchored a few miles below 



Elsiiiore; there they remained, treating 
with the King of Denmark, but forbidden 
to use force (Instructions to Captain Sail, 
30 Aug.), as the King of Denmark was 
probably aware. They were still hoping 
that the ships might be released, when, 011 
30 Sept., they were caught in the open 
roadstead in a violent storm ; the cables 
parted, the Antelope was hurled on shore, 
the other ships, more or less damaged, were 
swept out to sea. It was not till 2 Oct. 
that they could get back and take up the 
survivors from the wreck ; after which, 
having had enough of Denmark, they did 
not tarry for further negotiations, but set 
sail for England, and arrived in Bridlington 
Bay on the 14th, whence they went to 
Harwich and the Thames, to refit (John 
Barker to the Navy Commissioners, 15 Oct. 
1652 ; the Rolls' Calendar, by misprint, 
reads Bonker for Barker). After the severe 
check which Blake received off Dungeness, 
on 30 Nov., Ball was appointed to the 
Lion, of fifty guns, in the room of Captain 
Saltonstall, whose conduct in the battle had 
been called in question. He accordingly was 
occupied during the next two months in re- 
fitting the Lion, and joined the fleet off 
Queenborough in the beginning of February, 
when Blake promoted him to the command 
of his own ship, the Triumph, a position 
somewhat analogous to that now known as 
captain of the fleet, which confers the tem- 
porary rank of rear-admiral. The fleet, having 
sailed to the westward, encountered the 
Dutch off Portland on 18 Feb. 1652-3. The 
fight lasted with great fury throughout the 
day, and during the whole time the enemy's 
chief efforts were directed against the 
Triumph, which suffered heavily in hull, in 
rigging, and in men ; her captain, Andrew 
Ball, being one of the killed. In acknow- 
ledgment of his services, the state assigned 
a gratuity of 1,000/. to his widow; no men- 
tion is made of any children, but it is per- 
haps allowable to conjecture that the Andrew 
Ball who commanded the Orange Tree in 
the Mediterranean, under Sir Thomas Allin, 
in 1668, and was then accidentally drowned, 
may have been a son. 

[Calendars of State Papers, Domestic, 1649- 
1653 ; Granville Penn's Memorials of Sir William 
Penn, vol. i. ; Charnock's Biog. Nav. i. 214.] 

J. K. L. 

BALL, FRANCES (1794-1861), called 
Mother Frances Mary Theresa, was the 
daughter of a wealthy merchant of Dublin, 
where she was born, 9 Jan. 1794. In her 
twenty-first year she joined the Institute of 
the Blessed Virgin Mary at Micklegate Bar 



Ball 



73 



Ball 



convent, York. This sisterhood, which had 
long existed at York, was originally esta- 
blished on the continent in the seventeenth 
century by Mary Ward to supply the means 
of a sound religious and secular education 
to young ladies. Frances Ball introduced 
this institute into Ireland in 1821, and since 
then it has spread to most of the British 
colonies, where the nuns are usually called 
Sisters of Loreto. Before her death, which 
occurred at Rathfarnhani Abbey, 19 May 
1861, she founded thirty-seven convents in 
various parts of the world. 

[Life by William Hutch, D.D., Dublin, 1879 ; 
Addis and Arnold's Catholic Diet. (1884) 451.1 

T. C. 

BALL, HANNAH(1734-1792),Wesleyan 

methodist, was born on 13 March 1733-4. 
When Wesley and other methodist preachers 
visited High Wycombe, where she was resi- 
dent for the greater part of her life, she was 
attracted by their teaching. In 1766 she 
began to keep a diary, some extracts of which 
have been published. Several of the letters 
that passed between her and Wesley have 
also been printed. By Wesley's advice she 
broke oft' an engagement to be married to one 
who, in the language of the sect, was ' an un- 
godly man.' This Wesley termed, and not 
without reason, l a very uncommon instance 
of resolution.' She was a mystic, and Wes- 
ley warnsjher that ' a clear revelation of several 
persons in the ever blessed Trinity was by no 
means a sure trial to Christian perfection/ 
In 1769 she began a Sunday school. The 
germ of the modern Sunday school may be 
traced in the methods of instruction esta- 
blished by Luther, Knox, and St. Charles 
Borromeo. There are traces of them in 
France in the seventeenth century. The 
Rev. Joseph Alleine was in the habit of 
drawing young pupils together for instruc- 
tion on the Sunday. Bishop Wilson insti- 
tuted such schools in the Isle of Man in 
1703. The Seventh Day baptists had one 
between 1740 and 1747 at Euphrata, Lan- 
caster, Pennsylvania. In 1763 Mrs. Catha- 
rine Cappe and the Rev. Theophilus Lindsey 
had such a gathering of the young at Cat- 
terick. Dr. Kennedy, about 1770, established 
one in Bright parish, co. Down. In 1778 
the Rev. David Simpson opened one at 
Macclesfield. There was another at Little 
Lever, taught by ' Owd Jemmy o' th' Hey,' 
whose services were paid for by a wealthy 
paper-maker, Adam Crompton. These and 
others preceded the experiment made at 
Gloucester in 1783 by Robert Raikes, who 
is usually described as the founder of Sunday 
schools. 



Hannah Ball died on 16 Aug. 1792. The 
school was continued by her sister Anne. 
At this time the Wesleyans, whilst having 
their own separate meetings, were still at- 
tenders at the parish churches, and both 
Hannah Ball and her sister were in the habit 
of taking the school children with them. At 
the funeral of Mrs. Ball, a relative, the Rev. 
W. B. Williams observed that 'if any 
Arminian entered heaven the angels would 
cease to sing.' Anne Ball arose in her 
place and, gathering her little flock around 
her, marched out of the church, which she 
never re-entered. The little Sunday school 
was reorganised in 1801, and is still in exist- 
ence. 

[Memoir of Miss Hannah Ball, with extracts 
from her Diary and Correspondence, originally 
compiled by the Kev. Joseph Cole, and published 
at York in 1796 ; it was revised and enlarged by 
John Parker, with a preface by the Kev. Thomas 
Jackson, London, 1839 ; Rules of the Wesleyan 
Sabbath School at High Wycombe ; information 
supplied by Mr. John Parker and others.] 

W. E. A. A. 

BALL, JOHN (d. 1381), priest, fomented 
the insurrection of Wat Tyler. Very little is 
known of his previous career, except that he 
had been preaching for twenty years and had 
been three times committed to the archbishop 
of Canterbury's prison for his indiscreet utter- 
ances. He was probably, therefore, over forty 
years of age when he became so conspicuous in 
history. His career seems to have commenced 
at York, where, he tells us, he was St. Mary's 
priest probably attached to the abbey of St. 
Mary's. Afterwards he removed to Col- 
chester. He was certainly living in Essex 
in the year 1366, when the dean of Booking 
was ordered to cite him to appear before the 
archbishop of Canterbury, and to forbid 
persons attending his preaching (WiLKiNS, 
iii. 64). And ten years later we meet with 
an order for his arrest as an excommunicated 
person addressed to some of the clergy in 
the neighbourhood of Colchester (Patent 
Roll, 50 Edw. Ill, p. 2. m. 8 in dorso). All, 
however, had little effect ; for, according to 
Walsingham, he preached things which he 
knew to be agreeable to the vulgar. His 
doctrines were in great part those of Wy- 
cliffe, especially about the right of with- 
holding tithes from unworthy clergymen. 
But he added some of his own, among which 
(if it be not an exaggeration of his enemies) 
was the extraordinary opinion that no one 
was fit for the kingdom of God who was 
not born in matrimony. His popularity, 
however, was no doubt mainly due to his 
advocacy of the claims of bondsmen to be 
put on terms of equality with the gentry. 



Ball 



74 



Ball 



There was at that time a growing dissatis- 
faction with the laws which subjected the 
villeins to forced labour. 'We are all 
come,' they said, ' from one father and one 
mother, Adam and Eve. How can the 
. gentry show that they are greater lords 
than we ? Yet they make us labour for 
their pleasure.' It was this feeling that 
produced the insurrection of Wat Tyler, 
which broke out in June 1381. Ball was at 
that time lodged in the archbishop's prison 
at Maidstone, to which he had been com- 
mitted probably about the end of April, as 
on the 26th of that month the archbishop 
issued a writ to his commissary to denounce 
him as an excommunicate (WiLKiNS, iii. 
152). Formerly, it seems, he had been ex- 
communicated by Archbishop Islip, and the 
sentence had never been annulled ; yet, in 
defiance of all authority, he had gone about 
preaching in churches, churchyards, and 
market-places. It does not appear whether 
Islip was the archbishop who, according to 
Froissart, thought it was enough to chastise 
him with two or three months' imprisonment, 
and had the weakness to release him again. 
He excited the people not only by his 
preaching, but by a number of rhyming 
letters which passed about the country, 
some curious specimens of which have been 
preserved by Knighton and Walsingham. 
When committed to prison by Archbishop 
Sudbury he is said to have declared that he 
would be delivered by 20,000 friends. The 
prophecy was fulfilled ; for, on the breaking 
out of the rebellion in Kent, one of the first 
acts of the insurgents was to deliver him 
from Maidstone gaol, whence they carried 
him in triumph to Canterbury. Here he 
expected to have met the archbishop who 
had committed him to prison, but he was 
then in London, where he was afterwards 
murdered by the rebels. The host then 
turned towards London, and as at Canter- 
bury so also at Rochester, they met with an 
enthusiastic reception. At Blackheath, Ball 
preached to them from the famous text 

When Adam dalf, and Eve span, 
Wo was thanne a gentilman ? 

in which, as distinctly alleged by contem- 
porary writers, he incited the multitude to 
kill all the principal lords of the kingdom, 
the lawyers, and all whom they should in 
future find to be destructive to the common 
weal. The project was clearly to set up a 
new order of things founded on social 
equality a theory which in the whole his- 
tory of the middle ages appears for the first 
and last time in connection with this move- 
ment. The existing law and all its upholders 



were looked upon as public enemies, and 
every attorney's house was destroyed on the 
line of march. The Marshalsea prison was 
demolished and all the prisoners set free. 
John of Gaunt's magnificent palace, the 
Savoy, was burned to the ground. The 
rebels took possession of London and com- 
| pelled the king and his mother to take refuge 
! in the Tower. Nor were they safe even 
there from molestation, as the reader of his- 
tory knows. John Ball is mentioned among- 
those who rushed in when the Tower gates 
were thrown open, when Archbishop Sud- 
bury was seized and beheaded just after say- 
ing mass before the king. But the reign of 
j violence was short-lived. The great body of 
the rebels deserted their leaders and went 
. home on a promise of pardon, but a con- 
j siderable number still remained when Tyler 
had his celebrated interview with the king 
at Srnithfield. At that interview Ball was 
| present, and probably saw his leader fall 
j under the sword of Sir William Walworth. 
\ He afterwards fled to the midland counties 
j and was taken at Coventry ' hidden in an 
old ruin,' says Froissart. He was brought 
j before the king at St. Albans, where he was 
sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quar- 
i tered as a traitor. The sentence seems to 
; have been promptly carried out, and the 
king himself witnessed its execution at St. 
Albans on 15 July. The four quarters, after 
the barbarous fashion of those days, were 
sent to four different towns to be publicly 
exhibited. 

[Walsingham's Historia Anglicana, ii. 32-34 ; 

I Knighton (in Twysden's Scriptores Decem), 

2633-8; Froissart (Johnes's Translation), ii. 

460-80. In Maurice's ' English Popular 

J Leaders,' vol. ii., a slight memoir of Ball is- 

given, in which a more favourable view is taken 

] of his character.] J. GK 

BALL, JOHN (1585-1640), puritan di- 
j vine, was born at Cassington, Oxfordshire, in 
! October 1585. He was educated at Brase- 
1 nose College, Oxford, where he was entered in 
! 1602, and proceeded B.A. and M.A. at St. 
Mary's Hall. Having completed his academic 
course, he entered the family of Lady Chol- 
j mondeley, in Cheshire, as tutor. It was 
: there that he bethought him of ' spiritual 
I things,' and was ' converted.' He obtained 
ordination without subscription in 1610. He 
was then presented to the living of Whit- 
more, near Newcastle, in Staffordshire. There 
having been apparently no residence, he was 
the guest of Edward Mainwaring, Esq. Ball 
was a nonconformist wherever the relics of 
popery left in the national church touched 
his conscience. He was overwhelmed by the 
evils of the time, and used to associate him- 



Ball 



75 



Ball 



self with near brethren in long fast-days and 
prayer-days. For keeping Ascension day, he 
and his little circle were summoned by John 
Bridgman, the high-church bishop of Chester, 
who was specially indignant that the ' prayers, 
with fasting,' were kept on that ' holy day.' 
Thenceforward Ball was ' deprived ' and im- 
prisoned, released and re-confined alike ar- 
bitrarily, finding always a refuge, when at 
liberty, with Lady Bromley, of Sheriff-Hales, 
in Shropshire. Calaniy tells us that John 
Harrison, of Ashton-under-Lyne, in Lanca- 
shire, was exceedingly harassed by the into- 
lerant proceedings of the bishop, and put to 
great expenses in the ecclesiastical courts ; 
and when he consulted Mr. Ball what he 
should do to be delivered from these troubles, 
Mr. Ball recommended him to reward the 
bishops well with money, ' for it is that,' said 
he, ' which they look for.' Harrison tried the 
experiment, and afterwards enjoyed quietness 
(CALAMY, Account, ii. 396-7). 

Ball was an eminent scholar. He was spe- 
cially learned in the whole literature of the 
controversy with the church of Home as re- 
presented by Bellarmine. He died on 20 Oct. 
1640, aged fifty-five. Fuller says of him : 
' He lived by faith ; was an excellent school- 
man and schoolmaster, a powerful preacher, 
and a profitable writer, and his " Treatise of 
Faith" cannot be sufficiently commended.' 
Wood writes : ' He lived and died a noncon- 
formist, in a poor house, a poor habit, with a 
poor maintenance of about twenty pounds a 
year, and in an obscure village, teaching 
school all the week for his further support, 
yet leaving the character of a learned, pious, 
and eminently useful man.' Richard Baxter 
pronounced him as deserving ' of as high 
esteem and honour as the best bishop in 
England.' 

Ball's earliest book was l A Short Treatise, 
containing all the principal Grounds of Re- 
ligion.' Before 1632 it had passed through 
fourteen editions, and was translated into 
Turkish by a William Seaman in 1666. His 
other Avorks were : ' Treatise of Faith ' (1632 
and 1637), which was very popular in New 
England ; ' Friendly Trial of the Grounds of 
Separation ' (1640) ; ' Answer to two Trea- 
tises of Mr. John Can,' the leader of the 
English Brownists at Amsterdam (1642), 
edited by Simeon Ashe ; ' Trial of the New 
Church-way in New England and Old ' (1644), 
written against the New England ' indepen- 
dents ; ' ' Treatise of the Covenant of Grace ' 
(1645), edited by Simeon Ashe; 'Of the 




ditation' (1660). 



[Brook's Lives of the Puritans, ii. 440-4; 
MS. Chronology, ii. 395 (23), iii. A.B. 1640 ; 
Clark's Lives, 148-52; Puller's Worthies, ii. 
339; Wood's Athena? (Bliss), ii.670; Watt's Bibl. 
Brit.; Biog. Brit. ; Ball's Works.] A. B. a. 

BALL, JOHN (1665 P-1745), presbyterian 
minister, was one of ten sons of Nathaniel 
Ball, M.A. [q. v.] ejected from Barley, Herts. 
He was educated for the ministry under the 
Rev. John Short at Lyme-Regis, Dorset, and 
finished his studies at Utrecht, partly under 
the Rev. Henry Hickman, ejected fellow of 
Magdalen College, Oxford, w r ho died minister 
of the English church at Utrecht in 1692. 
He was ordained 23 Jan. 1695, and became 
minister in 1705 of the presbyterian con- 
gregation at Honiton (extinct 1788), where 
he united two opposing sections, and mi- 
nistered for forty years, being succeeded by 
John Rutter (d. 1769). He was a laborious 
scholar, and 'earned the Hebrew psalter into 
the pulpit to expound from it.' His learning 
and high character caused a seminary, which 
he opened prior to the Toleration Act, to be 
not only connived at, but attended by the 
sons of neighbouring gentry, though of the 
established church. Ball is remarkable for 
retaining the puritan divinity unimpaired to 
a late period. He had no sympathy with 
any of the innovations upon Calvinism which, 
long before his death, became rife among the 
presbyterians of the West. He published : 
1. 'The Importance of Right Apprehensions 
of God with respect to Religion and Virtue/ 
Lond. 1736, 8vo. 2. ' Some Remarks on a 
New Way of Preaching,' 1737 (this was an- 
swered by Henry Grove, the leader of the 
more moderate school of presbyterian libe- 
ralism). He died 6 May 1745, in his ninety- 
first year. 

[Calamy's Account; Palmer's Nonconf. Mem. 
i. 191 ; Funeral Sermon by John Walrond, 1745; 
Records of Exeter Assembly; Murch's Hist, of 
the Presb. and Gen. Bapt. Churches in West of 
England, 1835, p. 316; Davids' Ann. of Nonconf. 
in Essex, 1863, p. 596.] A. GK 

BALL, NATHANAEL (1623-1681), 
divine, assistant to W r alton in his great 
' Polyglot,' was born at Pitminster, near 
Taimton Dean, Somersetshire, in 1623. He 
carried all before him in his parish school, 
and proceeded early to the university of 
Cambridge, being entered of King's College. 
Here he speedily won a name as a classical, 
oriental, and biblical scholar. He also spoke 
French so idiomatically that he was some- 
times mistaken for a native of France. While 
at the university he gained the friendship of 
Tillotson. Having taken the degrees of B.A. 
and M.A., he received orders, and was settled 



Ball 



7 6 



Ball 



at Barley in Hertfordshire, this vicarage j 
having been recently sequestered from Her- j 
bert Thorndike, according to Walker (Suffer- \ 
ings, ii. 160). In Barley he proved himself | 
an active and pious clergyman (CALAMY'S j 
Ace. 362 ; PALMER'S Nonconf. Mem. ii. 309 ; 
FALDO'S Epistle, prefixed to Spiritual Bond- 
age}. He married there the daughter of a 
neighbouring clergyman named Parr, by 
whom he had ten sons and three daughters. 
The ' Register ' records five children of ' Mr. 
Nathaniel Ball, minister, and Mary, his 
wife ' (DAVIDS, Annals of Evangelical Non- 
conformity in Essex, 1863, p. 597). Thorn- 
dike in 1658-9 recovered his living, and Ball 
was ejected. For some time subsequent he 
resided in his parish, and then removed to 
Royston, where ' the people . . . chose him 
as their publick minister.' But the Act of 
L T niformity came, and he resigned the office 
as one of the two thousand. He did not 
immediately quit Royston, but 'continued 
in the town for some time,' preaching in 
the neighbourhood and beyond, as oppor- 
tunities offered. He afterwards retired to 
Little Chishill, of which parish his brother- ; 
in-law, Robert Parr, became the rector soon 
after the ejection of James Willett. While , 
at Chishill he acted as an evangelist in the 
town and parish, and at Epping, Cambridge, 
Bay ford, and other places. In 1668 he took 
part with Scandaret, Barnard, Havers, Cole- 
man, and Billio in two public disputes with 
George Whitehead, an irrepressible and fluent , 
quaker. In 1669 he was returned to Arch- 
bishop Sheldon as a ' teacher to a conventicle 
at Thaxted, in connection with Scambridge 
[Scandaret] and Billoway [Billio].' On the 
' Declaration ' of 1672 he was described as 
of Nether Chishill, and obtained a license 
(25 May 1672) to be a ' general presbyterian 
teacher in any allowed place.' In June 1672 
his own house was licensed to be a presby- 
terian meeting-place, and he himself was 
licensed in August to be a 'presbyterian 
teacher in his own house ' there. He lived 
' in a small cottage of forty shillings a year 
rent,' and frequently suffered for noncon- 
formity. Amid his multiplied labours and 
poverty he died on 8 Sept. 1681, aged 58. He 
left his manuscripts to his ' brother beloved,' 
the Rev. Thomas Gouge, of St. Sepulchre's, 
London, who died only a few weeks after 
him. They came into the possession of John 
Faldo, another of the ejected, who published 
a now extremely rare volume by Ball entitled 
' Spiritual Bondage and Freedom ; or a Treatise 
containing the Substance of several Sermons 
preached on that subject from John viii. 36, 
1683.' Ball also wrote ' Christ the Hope of 
Glory, several Sermons on Colossians i. 27, 



1692.' The former is dedicated to 'the 
right honourable and truly virtuous the Lady 
Archer, of Coopersail, in Essex,' one of Ball's 
numerous friends. It is greatly to be deplored 
that his biblical and oriental manuscripts 
the laborious occupation of a lifelong student 
and his extensive correspondence are now 
lost. They are known to have been in ex- 
istence in comparatively recent times. 

[Brook's History of Religious Liberty, ii. 66 ; 
Entry Book and License Book in State Paper 
Office ; Barley Parish Registers as quoted in 
Davids's Annals, pp. 596-9 ; Newcourt, i. 8.] 

A. B. G. 

BALL, NICHOLAS (1791-1865), Irish 
judge, son of John Ball, silk mercer of Dublin, 
was educated at Stonyhurst and Trinity Col- 
lege, Dublin, where his fellow students were 
Richard Sheil and W. II. Curran. He was 
called to the Irish bar in 1814, and after- 
wards passed two winters in Rome with Mr. 
(afterwards Sir Thomas) Wyse. The two 
young men saw much of Cardinal Gonsalvi, 
secretary of state. They were vehemently 
denounced and defended in the Irish press, 
because it was supposed that they used their 
influence to support a scheme for catholic 
emancipation, by which the pope should 
appoint Irish catholic bishops, subject to the 
veto of the English government. Ball ob- 
tained silk in 1830, and was admitted a 
bencher of the King's Inn in 1836. His 
success at the bar was not brilliant, but he 
soon obtained a very lucrative practice in 
the rolls court and in the court of chancery, 
where his reputation was that of an acute, 
clear, and ready advocate. In 1835 he was 
elected member of parliament for Clonmel, 
and in 1837 was appointed attorney-general 
and privy councillor for Ireland. He disliked 
parliamentary life, and spoke seldom and 
briefly, but in terse and lucid language. He 
was glad to take refuge in a judgeship of 
the common pleas (Ireland), to which he was 
preferred in 1839, and which he held till his 
death. He was the second Roman catholic 
barrister promoted to a judgeship after the 
passing of the Emancipation Act. He was 
a sound and able lawyer, and some of his 
charges are said to have been unsurpassed in 
his day. A silly story was current about him 
that ' he had ordered a mill to cease clacking 
until otherwise ordered by the court, and 
forgetting the withdrawal of the order before 
he left Cork, the owner had brought against 
him an action for damages.' Justice Ball 
was a sincere Roman catholic, but no ultra- 
montanist, a zealous Irish liberal, but strongly 
opposed to the disintegration of the empire. 
His literary acquirements were extensive and 



Ball 



77 



Ball 



accurate. He married in 1817 Jane, daughter 
of Thomas Sherlock, of Butlerstown Castle, 
co. Waterford, by whom he had several 
children, his eldest son, John, being under- 
secretary of state for the colonies under Lord j 
Palmerston's first administration. Justice j 
Ball died at his residence in Stephen's Green, 
and was buried in the family vault under s 
the chancel of the Roman catholic cathedral, ' 
Dublin. 

[Freeman's Journal, 16 and 20 Jan. 1865; 
Dublin Daily Express, 16 and 19 Jan. 1865 ; 
Gent. Mag. 3rd series, xviii. 389; Tablet, 21 Jan. 
1865.] P. B.-A. 

BALL or BALLE, PETER, M.D. 

(d. 1075), physician, was brother of William , 
Ball [q. v.], F.R.S. On 13 Jan. 1G58-9, being 
then twenty years of age, he was entered as a J 
medical student at Leyden, but proceeded to 
Padua, where he took the degree of doctor 
of philosophy and physic with the highest 
distinction 30 Dec. 1660. To celebrate the 
occasion verses in Latin, Italian, and Eng- 
lish were published at Padua, in which our 
physician, by a somewhat violent twist of 
his latinised names, Petrus Bale, is made to 
figure as ' alter Phoebus.' Ball was admitted 
an honorary fellow of the Royal College of 
Physicians in Dec. 1664. He was one of the 
original fellows of the Royal Society, one of 
the council in 1666, and in the following- 
year was placed on the committee for causing 
a catalogue to be made of the noble library 
and manuscripts of Arundel House, which 
had been presented to the society by Henry 
Howard, Esq., afterwards Duke of Norfolk. 
While at Mamhead in October 1665, Ball, 
in conjunction withhis elder brother, William, 
made the observation of Saturn mentioned 
under WILLIAM BALL. Dying in July 1675, 
he was buried on the 20th of that month in 
the round of the Temple Church. 

[Prince's Worthies of Devon, pp. 111-13; 
Munk's Koll of Koyal College of Physicians 
(1878), i. 335 ; Apollinare Sacrum, &c. 4to, 
JPatavii, MDCLX. ; Birch's Hist. Koy. Soc. vol. i.- 
iii. passim ; Athenaeum, 21 Aug. and 9 Oct. 
1880; Temple Kegister.j G-. G. 

BALL, ROBERT (1802-1857), naturalist, 
was born at Cove (now Queenstown), county 
Cork, on 1 April 1802. His father, Bob Stawel 
Ball, was descended from an old Devonshire 
family which settled in Youghal in 1651. 
He early showed a decided spirit of inquiry, 
especially into natural history. He was 
principally educated at Ballitore, county 
Kildare, by a Mr. White, who appreciated 
and encouraged his zoological studies. At 
home at Youghal he became an active 
outdoor observer, and recorded much that 



he saw with little aid. Taking an in- 
terest in public and useful institutions, he 
was appointed a local magistrate in 1824, 
a few months after coming of age. A 
little later the Duke of Devonshire in- 
duced him to enter the government service 
in Dublin, although he desired to study 
medicine, if he could do so without expense 
to his father. From 1827 to 1852 he was a 
zealous public servant in the under-secre- 
tary's office in Dublin, chained to the desk 
in occupation distasteful to him, disappointed 
of advancement or change of employment, 
at one time being put off with the reply that 
his duties were so well done that a change 
must be refused. A stranger was appointed 
to the head clerkship of his office when a 
vacancy occurred ; and finally in 1852 a re- 
duction took place in the chief secretary's 
office, and Ball was placed on the retired list, 
on the ground that ' he devoted much atten- 
tion to scientific pursuits, and that it was not 
expedient that public servants should be thus 
occupied ; ' although he had most faithfully 
performed his duties. His retiring allowance, 
however, allowed him to live in moderate 
comfort. The time he could spare from 
official work he always devoted to natural 
history pursuits, making zoological expedi- 
tions during his holidays, frequently with 
Mr. W. Thompson of Belfast, to whose many 
zoological publications, and especially the 
' Natural History of Ireland,' he added num- 
berless facts of interest. During almost the 
whole of his residence in Dublin he was one 
of the most prominent figures in its scientific 
life. He was for many years a member of the 
council of most of the Dublin scientific 
societies, and became president of the Geo- 
logical Society of Ireland, and of the Dublin 
University Zoological Association. For many 
years secretary of the Zoological Society of 
Ireland, he devoted unwearied care and in- 
genious suggestiveness to its gardens. To 
him the working classes of Dublin were in- 
debted for the penny charge for admission. 
He always exerted himself as far as possible 
to promote the general diffusion of scientific 
knowledge, especially by lectures and mu- 
seums; and in 1844, on being appointed 
director of the museum in Trinity College, 
Dublin, he presented to it his large collection 
of natural history, which was richer in Irish 
specimens than any other, and included 
many original examples and new species.. 
In recognition of his services and merits, 
Trinity College in 1850 conferred on him the 
honorary degree of LL.D. In 1851 he was 
appointed secretary of the Queen's University 
in Ireland, and discharged the office with 
distinguished success. Other offices in which 



Ball 



Ball 



Dr. Ball's services were of great importance 
were that of secretary to the Joint Committee 
of Lectures, appointed in 1854 by the go- 
vernment and the Royal Dublin Society, to 
direct scientific lectures in Dublin and in 
provincial centres, and assistant examiner to 
the Civil Service Commission (1855). He 
had been appointed president of the natural 
history section of the British Association for 
the Dublin meeting of 1857, but died several 
months previous to the meeting, on 30 March 

1857, of rupture of the aorta. His busy 
public life had in later years left him no 
leisure, and his life was shortened by over- 
work. In private life his social qualities and 
his honourable nature were most highly 
esteemed, and, like his friend, Professor 
Edward Forbes, he had a genius for enliven- 
ing a children's party. His principal scien- 
tific papers were on fossil bears found in 
Ireland, on remains of oxen found in Irish 
bogs, on Loligo, and other minor zoological 
topics, and were published in Proc. and Trans. 
Roy. Irish Acad. 1837-50 ; Proc. Zool. Soc. 
1844 ; Ann. Nat. Hist. 1846-50 ; Nat. Hist. 
Rev. 1855. 

[Memoir, by K. Patterson, Nat. Hist. Kev. 

1858, v. 1-34.] G. T. B. 

BALL, THOMAS (1590-1659), divine, 
-was born at Aberbury in Shropshire, in 
1590. His parents were of 'good and 
honest repute,' having neither * superfluity 
nor want,' His education was liberal ; and 
having a natural prepossession to learning, 
he was noted for his ' constant and uncon- 
strained industry about his books.' While 
still a youth he was appointed usher in the 
then famous school of Mr. Puller, at Epping, 
in Essex, ' where he was two years.' Thence 
he proceeded to Cambridge, entering at 
Queens' College in 1615. He proceeded 
M.A. in 1625. He was received by the Rev. 
Dr. John Preston as a pupil ' through the 
pleasing violence of a friendly letter which 
Mr. Puller writt in his high commendation.' 
Preaching on the * Trinity,' Preston found 
his pupil very much ' troubled ' over some of 
his statements and arguments. Ball put his 
questions and difficulties so modestly and 
ingenuously that the preacher was deeply 
interested in him. From that time they were 
devoted to each other. Dr. Preston, having 
become master of Emmanuel College, took 
Ball along with him from Queens', ; perceiv- 
ing his growing parts.' Ever after the master 
of the great puritan college ' esteemed him 
not only as his beloved pupil but as his 
bosom friend and most intimately private 
familiar.' He obtained a fellowship, and had 
an ' almost incredible multitude of pupils.' 



His ' exercises ' and sermons at St. Mary's 
gained him much distinction as a preacher. 
He accepted with some hesitation a l call ' to 
the great church of Northampton about 1630, 
and conducted the ' weekly lecture 'there for 
about twenty-seven years. When the plague 
came to the town, he remained and ministered. 
He printed only one book apparently, namely, 
' TloinrjvoTTvpyos Pastorum Propugnaculum, 
or the Pulpit's Patronage against the Force 
of Unordained Usurpation and Invasion. By 
Thomas Ball, sometime Fellow of Emmanuel 
College in Cambridge, now Minister of the 
Gospel in Northampton, at the request and 
by the advice of very many of his Neigh- 
bour-Ministers : London, 1656 ' [in British 
Museum, marked 22 Jan. 1655] pp. viii. 
and 344. This is a noticeable book, full 
of out-of-the-way learning, like Burton's 
' Anatomy of Melancholy,' and it has quaint 
sayings and stories equal to Fuller at his best. 

So far as this treatise, ' Pastorum Pro- 
pugnaculum,' is a defence of the church of 
England, it takes comparatively humble 
ground. It vindicates the reasonableness and 
scripturalness of 'ordination' and of ade- 
quate learning ; he states with candour the 
objections of his opponents. 

Ball, in association with Dr. Goodwin, 
edited and published the numerous posthu- 
mous works of his friend Dr. John Preston. 

He was thrice married, and had a large 
family. He died, aged sixty-nine, in 1659, and 
was buried 21 June. His funeral sermon was 
preached by his neighbour, John Howes. It 
was published under the title of ' Real 
Comforts,' and included notes of his life. 
This sermon is very rare. 

[Howes's Keal Comforts, dedicated to Mrs. 
Susanna Griffith, wife of Mr. Thomas Griffith, of 
London, merchant, and daughter of Thomas Ball, 
1660 (but really 30 June 1659); Brook's Lives 
of the Puritans ; Wood's Athense Oxon. (Bliss), 
iv. 756; Cole MSS., Cantab. Athenae and Miscel., 
in British Museum.] A. B. G-. 

BALL or BALLE, WILLIAM (d. 1690), 
astronomer, was the eldest of seventeen child- 
ren born to Sir Peter Ball, knight, recorder of 
Exeter and attorney-general to the queen in 
the reigns of Charles I and Charles II, by Ann, 
daughter of Sir William Cooke, of Gloucester- 
shire, his wife. In 1638, when William Ball 
was probably about eleven years of age, Robert 
Chamberlain, a dependant of his father, dedi- 
cated his ' Epigrams and Epitaphs ' to him in 
the character of a precocious poet. His ob- 
servations and drawings of Saturn from 
5 Feb. 1656 to 17 June 1659 (communicated 
by Dr. Wallis) are frequently cited by Huy- 
gens {Op. Varia, iii. 625-6) as confirmatory 



Ball 



79 



Ballantine 



of his own, in his ' Brief Assertion ' (1660) 
of the annular character of the Saturniaii 
appendages against the objections of Eus- 
tachio Divini. Ball joined the meetings of 
the * Oxonian Society'' at Gresham College in 
1659, co-operated in founding the Royal 
Society in the following year, and was named, ; 
in the charter of 15 July 1662, its first trea- . 
surer. On his resignation of this office, 
30 Nov. 1663, he promised, and subsequently 
paid to the funds of the society, a donation ! 
of 100/. (WELD, Hist. Royal Soc. i. 171). 
Soon after 15 June 1665, when he was present ! 
at a meeting of the Royal Society (BiRCH, 
Hist. Royal Soc. i. 439), he appears to have 
left London, and resumed his astronomical 
pursuits at his father's residence, Mamhead 
House, Devonshire, about ten miles south of : 
Exeter. Here, at six P.M. 13 Oct. 1665, he 
made, in conjunction with his brother, Peter \ 
Ball, M.D., F.R.S., an observation which has 
acquired a certain spurious celebrity. He | 
described it in the following sentence of a 
letter to Sir Robert Moray, which was ac- j 
companied by a drawing ; the words were 
inserted in No. 9 of the ' Philosophical j 
Transactions ' (i. 153) : 

' This appear'd to me the present figure of j 
Saturn, somewhat otherwise than I expected, I 
thinking it would have been decreasing ; but j 
I found it full as ever, and a little hollow 
above and below. Whereupon,' the report 
continues, ' the person to whom notice was | 
sent hereof, examining this shape, hath by j 
letters desired the worthy author of the j 
" Systeme of this Planet " [Huygens] that he 
would now attentively consider the present j 
figure of his anses or ring, to see whether | 
the appearance be to him as in this figure, I 
and consequently whether he there meets 
with nothing that may make him think that 
it is not one body of a circular figure that 
embraces his diske, but t wo.' 

Owing to some unexplained circumstance, 
the plate containing the figure referred to was 
omitted or removed from the great majority of 
copies of the ' Philosophical Transactions,' and 
the letterpress standing alone might naturally 
be interpreted to signify that the brothers Ball 
had anticipated by ten years Cassini's dis- 
covery of the principal division in Saturn's 
ring. This merit was in fact attributed to 
them by Admiral (then Captain) Smyth in 
1844 (A Cycle of Celestial Objects, p. 51), 
and his lead was followed by most writers on 
astronomical subjects down to October 1882, 
when Mr. W. T. Lynn pointed out, in the 
' Observatory,' the source of the misconcep- 
tion. In the few extant impressions of the 
woodcut from Ball's drawing not the slightest 
indication is given of separation into two 



concentric bodies, but the elliptic outline of 
the wide-open ring is represented as broken 
by a depression at each extremity of the 
minor axis. Sir Robert Moray's suggestion to 
Huygens seems (very obscurely) to convey 
his opinion that these ' hollownesses ' were 
due to the intersection of a pair of crossed 
rings. Their true explanation is unquestion- 
ably that Ball, though he employed a 38-foot 
telescope with a double eyeglass, and ' never 
saw the planet more distinct,' was deceived 
by an optical illusion. The impossible deli- 
neations of the same object by other ob- 
servers of that period (see plate facing p. 634 
of Huygens's Op. Varia, iii.) render Ball's 
error less surprising. Indeed, it was antici- 
pated at Naples in 1633 by F.. Fontana 
(Novce Observations, p. 130; see Observatory, 
No. 79, p. 341). 

Pepys tells us (Bright's ed. v. 375) that 
Ball accompanied him and Lord Brouncker 
to Lincoln's Inn to visit the new Bishop of 
Chester (Wilkins) 18 Oct. 1668, and he was 
one of a committee for auditing the accounts 
of the Royal Society in November following. 
He succeeded to the family estates on his 
father's death in 1680, and erected a monu- 
ment to him in the little church of Mamhead. 
He died in 1690, and was buried in the 
Round of the Middle Temple 22 Oct. of 
that year (Temple Register; cf. Letters of 
Administration P. C. C., by decree, 14 Jan. 
1692). He married Mary Posthuma Hussey, 
of Lincolnshire, who survived him, and had 
by her a son, William. The last of the Balls 
of Mamhead died 13 Nov. 1749. 

[Prince's Worthies of Devon (1701), 111-3; 
Polwhele's Hist, of Devonshire (1797), ii. 155-7 ; 
Watt's Bibl. Brit, i. 67 ; Prof. J. C. Adams 
(Month. Not. Royal Astr. Soc. Jan. 1883, pp. 92-7) 
attempts to prove that Ball's observation was 
misrepresented, both in the plate (cancelled, as 
he suggests, on that account) and in the letter- 
press of Phil. Trans. See, on the other side, 
Vivian in Month. Not. March 1883, and Lynn, 
in Observatory, 1 June and 1 Oct. 1883. Prof. 
Bakhuysen of Leyden gives, Observatory, 2 July 
1883, the passage from Moray's letter to Huygens 
referred to in Phil. Trans, i. 153. Huygens's 
reply has not yet been brought to light.] 

A. M. C. 

BALLANDEN. [See BELLENDEN.] 

BALLANTINE, JAMES (1808-1877), 
artist and man of letters, born at Edinburgh 
in 1808, was entirely a self-made man. 
His first occupation was that of a house- 
painter. He learned drawing under Sir 
William Allen at the Trustees' Gallery in 
Edinburgh, and was one of the first to re- 
vive the art of glass-painting. In 1845 he 



Ballantyne 



Ballantyne 



published a treatise on ' Stained Glass, show- 
ing its applicability to every style of Archi- 
tecture/ and was appointed by the royal 
commissioners on the fine arts to execute the 
stained-glass windows for the House of Lords. 
He was the author of several popular works : 
1. 'The Gaberlunzie's Wallet/ 1843. 2. 'The 
Miller of Deanhaugh/ 1845. 3. An ' Essay 
on Ornamental Art/ 1847. 4. 'Poems/ 1856. 

5. ' One Hundred Songs, with Music/ 1865. 

6. 'The Life of David Koberts, K.A.' 1866. 
There is also a volume of verses published 
by Ballantine in Jamaica, whither in later 
life he seems to have retired for the benefit 
of his health. < The Gaberlunzie's Wallet ' 
and some of his songs are still popular in 
Scotland. He died in Edinburgh in Decem- 
ber 1877. He was the head of the firm of 
Messrs. Ballantine, glass stainers, Edinburgh. 

[Athenseum, 22 Dec. 1877 ; Academy, 29 Dec. 
1877 ; Cooper's Men of the Time, 1875.] 

E. E. 

BALLANTYNE, JAMES (1772-1833), 
the printer of Sir Walter Scott's works, was 
the son of a general merchant in Kelso, 
where he was born in 1772. His friendship 
with Scott began in 1783 at the grammar 
school of Kelso. After mastering his lessons, 
Scott used to whisper to Ballantyne, ' Come, 
slink over beside me, Jamie, and I'll tell you 
a story ;' and in the interval of school hours 
it was also their custom to walk together by 
the banks of the Tweed, engaged in the same 
occupation. Before entering the office of a 
solicitor in Kelso, Ballantyne passed the 
winter of 1785-6 at Edinburgh University. 
His apprenticeship concluded, he again went 
to Edinburgh to attend the class of Scots 
law, and on this occasion renewed his ac- 

Siaintance with Scott at the Teviotdale 
ub, of which both were members. In 1795 
he commenced practice as a solicitor in 
Kelso, but as his business was not immedi- 
ately successful he undertook in the follow- 
ing year the printing and editing of an anti- 
democratic weekly newspaper, the 'Kelso 
Mail.' A casual conversation with Scott, in 
1799, led to his printing, under the title of 
' Apologies for Tales of Terror/ a few copies 
of some ballads which Scott had written for 
Lewis's Miscellany, ' Tales of Wonder.' So 
pleased was Scott with the beauty of the 
type, that he declared that Ballantyne should 
be the printer of the collection of old Border 
ballads, with which he had been occupied 
for several years. They were published under 
the title of ' Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border/ , 
the first two volumes appearing in Jan. 1802 ; | 
and the connection thus inaugurated between ! 
author and printer remained uninterrupted j 



through ' good and bad weather ' to the close 
of Scott's life. 

Induced by the strong representations of 
Scott, Ballantyne, about the close of 1802, 
removed to Edinburgh, ' finding accommoda- 
tion for two presses and a proof one in the 
precincts of Holyrood House.' Scott, besides 
advancing a loan of 500/., exerted himself 
to procure for him both legal and literary 
printing ; and such was the reputation soon 
acquired by his press for beauty and correct- 
ness of execution that in 1805 the capital 
at his command was too small to fulfil the 
contracts that were offered him, and he ap- 
plied to Scott for a second loan, who there- 
upon became a third sharer in the business. 
In 1808 the firm of John Ballantyne & Co., 
booksellers, was also started, Scott having 
one half share, and James and John Ballan- 
tyne one fourth each. John Ballantyne [q.v.] 
undertook the management of the book- 
selling and publishing business, the printing 
business continuing under the superintend- 
ence of the elder brother ; but the actual 
head of both concerns was Scott, who, al- 
though in establishing them he was actuated 
by a friendly interest in the Ballantynes, 
wished both to find a convenient method of 
engaging in a commercial undertaking with- 
out risk to his status in society, and also as 
an author to avoid the irksome intervention 
of a publisher between him and the reading 
public. The publishing business was gradu- 
ally discontinued, but the printing business 
was in itself a brilliant success. The high 
perfection to which Ballantyne had brought 
the art of printing, and his connection with 
Scott, secured such enormous employment 
for his press that a large pecuniary profit 
was almost an inevitable necessity. But 
though not deficient in natural shrewd- 
ness, he was careless in his money transac- 
tions, and it was the artistic and literary 
aspect of his business that chiefly engaged 
his interest. Much of his time was occupied 
in the correction and revision of the proofs 
of Scott's works, the writing of critical and 
theatrical notices, and the editing of the 
* Weekly Journal/ of which, along with his 
brother, he became proprietor in 1817. Scott's 
hurried method of composition rendered care- 
ful inspection of his proofs absolutely neces- 
sary, but the amendments of Ballantyne had 
reference, in addition to the minor points of 
grammar, to the higher matters of taste and 
style. Though himself a loose and bom- 
bastic writer, he had a keen eye for detect- 
ing solecisms, inaccuracies, or minute imper- 
fections in phrases and expressions, and his 
hints in regard to the general treatment of a 
subject were often of great value. If Scott 



Ballantyne 



81 



Ballantyne 



seldom accepted his amendments in the form 
suggested, he nearly always admitted the 
force of his objections, and in deference to 
them frequently made important alterations. 
Indeed, it is to the criticism of Ballantyne 
that we owe some of Scott's most vivid epi- 
thets and most graphic descriptive touches. 
(For examples, see LOCKHART'S Life of Scott, 
chap, xxxv.) Love of ease and a propensity 
to indulgence at table were the principal | 
faults of Ballantyne. On account of the | 
grave pomposity of his manner Scott used 
to name him * Aldiborontiphoscophornio,' 
his more mercurial brother being dubbed 
' Rigdumfunnidos.' In 1816, Ballantyne mar- 
ried Miss Hogarth, sister of George Hogarth, 
the author of the * History of Music.' He 
lived in a roomy but old-fashioned house 
in St. John Street, Canongate, not far from 
his printing establishment. There, on the 
eve of a new novel by the Great Unknown, 
he was accustomed to give a ' gorgeous ' 
feast to his more intimate friends, when, 
after Scott and the more staid personages 
had withdrawn, and the ' claret and olives 
had made way for broiled bones and a mighty 
bowl of punch,' the proof sheets were at 
length produced, and ' James, with many a 
prefatory hem, read aloud what he con- 
sidered as the most striking dialogue they 
contained.' 

The responsibility of Ballantyne for the 
pecuniary difficulties of Sir Walter Scott 
has been strongly insisted on by Lockhart, 
but this was not the opinion of Scott him- 
self, who wrote : ' I have been far from suf- 
fering from James Ballantyne. I owe it to 
him to say that his difficulties as well as his 
advantages are owing to me.' Doubtless the 
printing-press, with more careful superin- 
tendence, would have yielded a larger profit, 
but the embarrassments of Scott originated 
in his connection with the publishing firm, 
and were due chiefly to schemes propounded 
by himself and undertaken frequently in 
opposition to the advice of Ballantyne. In 
1826 the firm of James Ballantyne & Co. 
became involved in the bankruptcy of Con- 
stable & Co., publishers. After his bank- 
ruptcy Ballantyne was employed at a mode- 
rate salary by the creditors' trustees in the 
editing of the * Weekly Journal ' and the 
literary management of the printing-house, 
so that his literary relations with Scott's 
works remained unaltered. He died 17 Jan. 
1833, about four months after the death of 
Scott. 

[Lockhart's Life of Scott ; Eefutation of the 
Misstatements and Calumnies contained in Mr. 
Lockhart's Life of Sir Walter Scott respecting 
the Messrs. Ballantyne, 1835 ; The Ballantyne 

YOL. III. 



Humbug handled by the author of the Life of 
Sir Walter Scott, 1839 ; Eeply to Mr. Lockhart's 
pamphlet, entitled ' The Ballantyne Humbug 
handled,' 1839; Archibald Constable and his 
Literary Correspondents, 1873.] T. F. H. 

BALLANTYNE, JAMES ROBERT 

(d. 1864), orientalist, after being connected 
with the Scottish Naval and Military Aca- 
demy, was sent out to India in 1845, on the 
recommendation of Professor H. H. Wilson, 
to superintend the reorganisation of the go- 
vernment Sanskrit college at Benares. The 
intimate relations he here established with 
native teachers and students, and the high 
opinion he formed of the philosophical sys- 
tems of India, led him to undertake a com- 
prehensive series of works with the design 
of rendering the valuable elements in Hindu 
thought more accessible and familiar to Euro- 
pean students than they had hitherto been. 
This was the aim of his translations of the 
Sanskrit aphorisms of the Sankhya and many 
of those of the Nyaya school, with tracts 
bearing upon these and also upon the Ve- 
danta system. The converse process the 
communication of European ideas to the 
Brahmins is exhibited in his ' Synopsis of 
Science, in Sanskrit and English, reconciled 
with the truth to be found in the Nyaya 
Philosophy,' and most of his works are filled 
with the design of establishing more intel- 
ligent relations between Indian and Euro- 
pean thought. Dr. Ballantyne had an original 
bent of mind, and his method of dealing with 
philosophical systems was often suggestive. 
The list of his works is as follows : 1. ' A 
Grammar of the Hindustani Language,' Edin- 
burgh, 1838, with a second edition. 2. ' Ele- 
ments of Hindi and Braj Bhakha Grammar,' 
London and Edinburgh, 1839. 3. 'A Gram- 
mar of the Mahratta Language,' Edinburgh, 
lithographed, 1839. 4. < Principles of Per- 
sian Caligraphy, illustrated by lithographic 
plates of the Naskh-Ta'lik character,' Lon- 
don and Edinburgh, 1839. 5. ' Hindustani 
Selections in the Naskhi and Devanagari 
character,' Edinburgh, 1840 ; 2nd edition, 
1845. 6. l Hindustani Letters, lithographed 
in the Nuskh-Tu'leek and Shikustu-Amez 
character, with translations,' London and 
Edinburgh, 1840. 7. ' The Practical Oriental 
Interpreter, or Hints on the art of Translating- 
readily from English into Hindustani and 
Persian,' London and Edinburgh, 1843. 
8. ' Catechism of Persian Grammar,' Lon- 
don and Edinburgh, 1843. 9. Pocket Guide 
to Hindoostani Conversation,' London and 
Edinburgh. (The preceding books were 

Published before Dr. Ballantyne went to 
ndia.) 10. ' Catechism of Sanskrit Gram- 
mar,' 2nd edition, London and Edinburgh, 

G 



Ballantyne 



Ballantyne 



1845. 11. ' The Laghu Kaiunudi, a Sanskrit 
Grammar, by Varadaraja/ 1st edition, 1849 ; 
2nd, 1867, posthumous. 12. * First Lessons 
in Sanskrit Grammar, together with an In- 
troduction to the Hitopadesa/ 1st edition, 
1850; 2nd, 1862. 13. 'A Discourse on 
Translation, with reference to the Educa- 
tional Despatch of the lion. Court of Di- 
rectors, 19 July 1854,' Mirzapore, 1855. 
14. ' A Synopsis of Science in Sanskrit and 
English, reconciled with the Truths to be 
found in the Nyaya Philosophy/ Mirzapore, 
1856. 15. 'The Mahabhashya (Patanjali's 
Great Commentary on Panini's famous gram- 
mar), with Commentaries,' Mirzapore, 1856. 
16. ' Christianity contrasted with Hindu 
Philosophy, in Sanskrit and English ' (a work 
to which was awarded the moiety of a prize 
of 300Z. offered by a member of the Bengal 
Civil Service, and decided by judges ap- 
pointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury 
and the Bishops of London and Oxford), 
London, 1859. 

Dr. Ballantyne also edited and partly 
wrote a series of educational books for the 
use of the Sanskrit college. Some of these 
appeared under the title of ' Reprints for the 
Pandits,' and included treatises on chemistry, 
physical science, logic, and art, and an ex- 
planatory version, in Sanskrit and English, 
of Bacon's ' Novum Organon ' (1852), which 
reached a second edition in 1860. ' The 
Bible for the Pandits ' was the title of a 
translation of the first three chapters of 
Genesis into Sanskrit, with a commentary 
(1860). 

In 1861 Dr. Ballantyne resigned his posi- 
tion at the Benares college, where for six- 
teen years he had been an indefatigable and 
judicious principal and a liberal professor of 
moral philosophy, and on his return to Eng- 
land was appointed librarian to the India 
Office. His health, however, had long been 
failing, and he died on 16 Feb. 1864. The 
Benares college owed much to his wise and 
broad-minded direction, and native students 
have profited greatly by his zealous labours 
on their behalf. 

[Athenaeum, 12 March 1864 ; Ballantyne's 
Works, especially advertisement to the Synopsis 
of Science.] S. L.-P. 

BALLANTYNE, JOIIX (1774-1821), 
publisher, younger brother of James Ballan- 
tyne, printer of Sir W. Scott's works [q.v.l, was 
born at Kelso in 1774. After spending a 
short time in the banking house of Messrs. 
Carrie, London, he returned, in 1795, to Kelso, 
and became partner in his father's business as 
general merchant. On his marriage in 1797 
the partnership was dissolved, one principal 



part of the business being resigned to him. 
Gradually he got into money difficulties, and, 
having disposed of his goods to pay his debts, 
went to Edinburgh in January 1806, to be- 
come clerk in his brother's printing establish- 
ment at a salary of 200/. a year. When 
Scott in 1808, on the ostensible ground of a 
misunderstanding with Messrs. Constable & 
Hunter, established the firm of John Ballan- 
tyne & Co., John Ballantyne was appointed 
manager at a salary of 300/. a year and one- 
fourth of the profits. The private memo- 
randum-book of Ballantyne records that al- 
ready in 1809 the firm was getting into diffi- 
culties ; and during the next three years their 
general speculations continued so uniformly 
unsuccessful, that in May 1813 Scott opened 
negotiations with Constable for pecuniary 
assistance in return for certain stock and 
copyright, including a share in some of Scott's 
own poems, and on a pledge of winding up 
the concerns of the firm as soon as possible. 
Although ' Waverley ' was published by Con- 
stable in 1814, Scott, owing either, as stated 
by Lockhart, to the misrepresentations of 
John Ballantyne regarding Constable, or to 
the urgent necessity for more ready money 
than Constable was willing to advance, made 
arrangements in 1815 for the publication of 
' Guy Mannering ' by Longman, and in the 
following year of the ' Tales of my Landlord ' 
by Murray. Lockhart states that Ballantyne, 
in negotiating with Constable in 1817 re- 
garding a second series of ' Tales of my Land- 
lord,' so wrought on his jealousy by hinting 
at the possibility of dividing the series with 
Murray, that he ' agreed on the instant to do 
all that John shrank from asking, and at one 
sweep cleared the Augean stable in Hanover 
Street of unsaleable rubbish to the amount 
of 5,270/. ; ' but from a passage in the ' Life 
of Archibald Constable' (iii. 98) it would 
appear that this was not effected till a later 
period. John Ballantyne, whom Scott con- 
tinued to employ in all the negotiations re- 
garding the publication of his works, had in 
1813, on the advice of Constable, started as 
an auctioneer chiefly of books and works of 
art, an occupation well suited to his pecu- 
liar idiosyncrasies. As he had also made a 
stipulation with Constable that he was to 
have a third share in the profits of the Wa- 
verley novels, he suffered no pecuniary loss 
by the dissolution of the old publishing firm. 
In addition to this, Scott, in 1820, gratuitously 
offered his services as editor of a l Novelist's 
Library,' to be published for his sole benefit. 
His easily won gains were devoted to the 
gratification of somewhat expensive tastes. 
At his villa on the Firth of Forth, which he 
had named l Harmony Hall,' and had ' in- 



Ballantyne 



Ballard 



vested with an air of daintj^ voluptuous 
finery/ he gave frequent elaborate Parisian 
dinners, among the guests at which was sure 
to be found ' whatever actor or singer of 
eminence visited Edinburgh.' He frequented 
foxhunts and race-meetings, and even at. his 
auction ' appeared uniformly, hammer in hand, 
in the half-dress of some sporting club.' His 
Imprudent pursuit of pleasure told gradually 
on his constitution, and after several years 
of shattered health he died at his brother's 
house in Edinburgh 16 June 1821. Ballan- 
tyne is the author of a novel ' The Widow's 
Lodgings ' which, though stated by Lock- 
hart to be 'wretched trash,' reached a second 
edition. In his will he bequeathed to Sir 
Walter Scott a legacy of 2,000/. ; but after 
Ms death it was found that his aifairs were 
liopelessly bankrupt. In the antics and ec- 
centricities of Ballantyne Scott discovered 
an inexhaustible fund of amusement ; but he 
also cherished towards him a deep and sincere 
attachment. Standing beside his newly closed 
grave in Canongate churchyard, he whispered 
to Lockhart, ' I feel as if there would be less 
sunshine for me from this day forth.' 

[Lockhart's Life of Scott ; Refutation of the 
Misstatements and Calumnies contained in Mr. 
Lockhart's Life of Sir Walter Scott respecting 
the Messrs. Ballantyne, 1835 ; The Ballantyne 
Humbug handled by the author of the Life of 
Sir Walter Scott, 1839; Reply to Mr. Lockhart's 
pamphlet, entitled ' The Ballantyne Humbug 
handled,' 1839 ; Archibald Constable and his 
Literary Correspondents, 1873 ] T. F. H. 

BALLANTYNE, JOHN (1778-1830), 
divine, was born in the parish of Kinghorn 
8 May 1778 ; entered the university of Edin- 
burgh in 1795, and joined the Burgher branch 
of the Secession church, though his parents 
belonged to the establishment. He was or- 
dained minister of a congregation at Stone- 
haven, Kincardineshire, in 1805. In 1824 
lie published ' A Comparison of Established 
and Dissenting Churches, by a Dissenter.' In 
1830 this pamphlet, which had failed to 
e xcite notice, was republished with additions 
during the ' voluntary church ' controversy 
of the period. Ballantyne's partisanship in 
the controversy is said to have injured the 
reception of his ' Examination of the Human 
Mind,' the first part of which appeared in 
1828 ; two further parts were intended, but 
never appeared. The failure, however, may 
be accounted for without the influence of 
party spirit. It is the work of a thoughtful 
but not very original student of Reid and Du- 
gald Stewart, with some criticism of Thomas 
Brown. It is recorded that Ballantyne ma- 
naged to pay for publication out of his own 
savings, handing over a sum bestowed on 



the occasion by a generous patron to some 
missionary purpose. Ballantyne suffered 
from indigestion brought on by excessive 
application, and died 5 Nov. 1830. 

[McKerrow's Church of the Secession, pp. 
j 913-16; Recollections by T.Longmuir, Aberdeen, 
! 1872; McCosh's Scottish Philosophy, pp. 388- 
392.] 

BALLANTYNE, THOMAS (1806- 
1871), journalist, was a native of Paisley, 
where he was born in 1806. Becoming editor 
of the ' Bolton Free Press,' he at an early 
period of his life took an active part in ad- 
vocating social and political reforms. While 
editor of the 'Manchester Guardian' he 
became intimately associated with Messrs. 
Cobden and Bright in their agitation against 
the corn laws, and in 1841 he published the 
'Corn Law Repealer's Handbook.' Along 
with Mr. Bright he was one of the four 
original proprietors of the ' Manchester Ex- 
aminer,' his name appearing as the printer 
and publisher. After the fusion of the ' Ex- 
aminer ' with the ' Times,' he became editor 
of the ' Liverpool Journal,' and later of the 
'Mercury.' Subsequently he removed to 
London to edit the ' Leader,' and he was for 
a time associated with Dr. Mackay in the 
editorial department of the ' Illustrated Lon- 
don News.' He also started the ' Statesman,' 
which he edited till its close, when he became 
editor of the * Old St. James's Chronicle.' 
Notwithstanding his journalistic duties, he 
found time to contribute a number of papers 
on social and political topics to various re- 
views and magazines : in addition to which 
he published: 1. 'Passages selected from the 
Writings of Thomas Carlyle, with a Bio- 
graphical Memoir,' 1855 and 1870. 2. ' Pro- 
phecy for 1855, selected from Carlyle's Latter- 
day Pamphlets,' 1855. 3. 'Ideas, Opinions, 
and Facts,' 1865. 4. ' Essays in Mosaic,' 1870. 
Regarding his proficiency in this species of 
compilation, Carlyle himself testifies as fol- 
lows : ' I have long recognised in Mr. Ballan- 
tyne a real talent for excerpting significant 
passages from books, magazines, newspapers 
(that contain any such), and for presenting 
them in lucid arrangement, and in their most 
interesting and readable form.' Ballantvne 
died at London 30 Aug. 1871. 

[Sutton's Lancashire Authors, p. 7 ; Glasgow 
Daily Mail, 9 Sept. 1871 ; Paisley Weekly Herald, 
11 Sept. 1871.] T. F. H. 

BALLANTYNE, WILLIAM (16l6- 

1661), catholic divine. [See BALLEXDEN.] 

BALLARD, EDWARD GEORGE 

(1791-1860), miscellaneous writer, was the 
son of Edward Ballard, an alderman of 



Ballard 



8 4 



Ballard 



Salisbury, and Elizabeth, daughter of G. F. 
Benson of that city. Owing to the delicacy 
of his health, his education was much neg- 
lected. He obtained a situation in the Stamp 
Office in 1809, and. having resigned this ap- 
pointment, entered the Excise Office, which 
lie also left of his own accord in 1817. He 
applied himself vigorously to study. In 1817 
he became a contributor to Woollr's ' Rea- 
soner.' The following year he married Mary 
Ann Shadgett, and wrote several criti- 
cisms and verses for the 'Weekly Review,' 
then edited by his brother-in-law, William 
Shadgett. He contributed to the ' Literary 
Chronicle ' and the ' Imperial Ma p-azine ' under j 
the signature E. G. B., and to the ' Literary ; 
Magnet ' and the ' World of Fashion ' under j 
that of r. He published in 1825 a volume en- j 
titled 'A New Series of Original Poems,' and a j 
few years after another entitled * Microscopic j 
Amusements.' He was exceedingly fond of 
research. Robert Benson [q. v.], his cousin, 
and Hatcher received no small help from 
him in writing their < History of Salisbury ' 
(1843), which formed part of Hoare's ' Wilt- 
shire.' He helped John Gough Nichols in 
the works undertaken for the Camden So- 
ciety. In 1848 he brought out some parts j 
of a continuation of Strype's ' Ecclesiastical : 
Annals ' in a publication called the ' Sur- j 
plice/ but this paper and Ballard's scheme j 
soon came to an end. He wrote occasionally ; 
in the ' Gentleman's Magazine,' and in ' Notes j 
and Queries.' He lost his wife in 1820. He 
died at Islington on 14 Feb. 1860, leaving a 
son, Edward Ballard, M.D., author of several 
medical works, and a daughter. 

[Gent. Mag. 3rd ser. vol. viii. I860.] W. H. 

BALLARD, GEORGE (1706-1755), a 
learned antiquary, was born of mean pa- 
rentage at Campden, Gloucestershire. His 
mother was a midwife. As his health was 
weak, a light employment was chosen for 
him, and he was apprenticed to a staymaker 
or woman's habit-maker. He showed early 
a taste for learning, particularly for the study 
of Anglo-Saxon, and when his day's work was 
over he would read far into the night. Lord 
Chedworth and some gentlemen of the hunt, 
who usually spent a month in the neighbour- 
hood of Campden, hearing of Ballard's ability 
and industry, generously offered him an an- 
nuity of 100/. a year for life, in order to allow 
him to pursue his studies. Ballard replied 
that he would be fully satisfied with 607. a 
year ; and with this allowance he proceeded 
in 1750, at the age of forty-four, to Oxford, 
where he was made one of the eight clerks 
at Magdalen College, receiving his rooms 
and commons free. In earlier life he had 



already visited Oxford several times, and 
had made the acquaintance of Thomas 
Hearne, the antiquary. Hearne describes 
in his diary a visit Ballard paid him on 
2 March 1726-7, and writes of him as ' an 
ingenious curious young man,' who 'hath 
picked up an abundance of old coins, some- 
of which he shewed me.' * He is a might y 
admirer of John Fox,' Hearne adds, 'and 
talks mightily against the Roman Catholics. 
. . . Mr. Ballard hath a sister equally cu- 
rious in coins and books with himself. He 
told me she is twenty-three years of age.' 
Hearne makes many similar entries between 
1727 and 1733. Ballard was afterwards 
chosen one of the university bedells. In- 
1752 he published ' Memoirs of several Ladies 
of Great Britain who have been celebrated 
for their writings or skill in the learned 
languages, arts, and sciences,' 4to, a book 
which contains much curious and interesting 
matter. A second edition appeared in 177o. 
In 'Letters from the Bodleian,' 1813, ii. 140-7 r 
there is printed a long letter to Dr. Lyttelton, 
dean of Exeter, in which Ballard defends his 
' Memoirs ' from some hostile criticism that 
had appeared in the ' Monthly Review'.' 
When Ames was preparing his ' History of 
Printing,' Ballard aided him with notes and 
suggestions (NiCHOLS, Literary Illustrations, 
iv. 206-26). An account of Campden church 
by Ballard is printed in the ' Archseologia.' 
He held frequent correspondence on literary 
subjects with the learned Mr. Elstob. He 
copied out in manuscript ^Elfred's version 
of Orosius, prefixing an essay on the advan- 
tages of the study of Anglo-Saxon. Ballard 
left Oxford for Campden some months before 
his death, while suffering from the stone, 
from which he died 24 June 1755. At his- 
death he bequeathed his volume on Orosius 
to his friend Dr. Lyttelton, bishop of Carlisle, 
who presented it to the library of the Society 
of Antiquaries. Other manuscripts he left 
to the Bodleian. They consist of forty-four 
volumes of letters, of which five volumes 
contain letters addressed to himself, and the 
remainder letters to Dr. Charlett and others. 
A few of the letters were published in ' Let- 
ters written by Eminent Persons,' 2 vols. 
London, 1813. 

[Bloxam's Magdalen College Registers, ii. 95- 
102; Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, ii. 466-70, iv. 
123 ; Nichols's Literary Illustrations, iv. 206-26 
Letters from the Bodleian, 1813, ii. 89-90, 140- 
47.] A. H. B. 

BALLARD, JOHN (d. 1586), Roman 

! catholic priest, owes his fame solely to his 

j connection with the Babington conspiracy, 

of which a general account is given under 



Ballard 



Ballard 



ANTHONY BABINGTON. He was apparently 
educated at Rheims, and first sent upon 
a mission to England in 1581 (Archives 
of English College at Rome, in FOLEY'S 
Records, iii. 44). He passed under various 
.aliases, first Turner, then Thompson, but later 
on always under that of Foscue or Fortescue. 
It has been doubted whether his real name 
was not Thompson. The object of his coming 
was to ' reconcile 'doubting or recalcitrant ca- 
tholics to the church of Home, and doubtless 
to sound their political dispositions. He was 
well furnished with money, was commonly 
called captain, and seems to have been fond 
of fine clothes and fine company (TYEEELL'S 
Confession). Among the persons whose ac- 
quaintance he made was Anthony Tyrrell, 
the Jesuit, whose confession, could it be 
.accepted as trustworthy, would give us most 
of the facts of Ballard's career. But TyrrelTs 
confession was retracted, reaffirmed, and then 
Again retracted, and is at least as much open 
to suspicion as the testimony of any other 
informer. Tyrrell made Ballard's acquaint- 
ance at the Gatehouse, Westminster, where 
they were both temporarily confined in 1581. 
In 1584 these two travelled to Rouen, and 
afterwards to Rheims, where they held a 
conference with Cardinal Allen, and from 
Rheims they proceeded to Rome, where they 
arrived on 7 Sept. 1584 (Pilgrims' Register 
,at Rome, and TYRRELL). It was then that 
Tyrrell, in his confession, represents them 
as having an interview with Alfonso Agaz- 
.zari, rector of the English college, in which 
they inquired as to the lawfulness of at- 
tempting the assassination of Elizabeth, and 
received assurances in the affirmative, and 
subsequently the blessing of Gregory XIII 
upon their enterprise. This account, although 
accepted as an undoubted fact by some histo- 
rians, rests on no better authority than the 
confession of Tyrrell. They left Rome in 
October and journeyed homeward through 
France. In the late months of 1.585 Ballard, 
disguised as a military officer and passing 
under the name of Captain Fortescue, tra- 
velled through almost every county of Eng- 
land and visited every catholic or semi- 
catholic family. In May 1586 Ballard went 
to Paris, where he informed Charles Paget, 
the adherent of Mary Queen of Scots, and 
the Spanish minister Mendoza, that the ca- 
tholic gentry in England were willing, with 
the help of Spain, to rise in insurrection 
against Elizabeth and her counsellors. Mau- 
vissiere, the French ambassador in London, 
refused to countenance the scheme (TYRRELL'S 
Conf.). Chateauneuf, another French envoy 
to England, believed Ballard to have been at 
one time a spy of Walsingham (Memoire de 



Chateauneuf ap. LABAXOFF, vi. 275 seq.). 
! But Paget and Mendoza trusted him, and 
' on his return to England, at the end of May 
1586, he instigated Anthony Babington to 
; organise without delay his famous conspiracy. 
He came to England, bearing a letter of in- 
troduction from Charles Paget to Mary Queen 
\ of Scots (dated 29 May 1586, ap. MTJRDIN, 
p. 531). He reported to her the condition of 
the country, and she sent him again to France 
I to hasten the active co-operation of the King 
, of Spain and of the pope (Mary to Paget, 
! 17 July, LABANOFF). Meantime Ballard 
imagined he had found a useful ally in his 
negotiations abroad and at home in Gilbert 
| Gilford, a catholic, and to him many details 
j of the plot were communicated ; but Gifford 
! had since 1585 been in Walsingham's secret 
service, and reported to the English govern- 
ment the progress of the conspiracy. Owing 
! mainly to the revelations of Giftbrd, wnom 
Ballard suspected too late, Ballard was sud- 
denly arrested in London on 4 Aug., on a 
warrant drawn up early in July. He was 
committed to the Tower and severely racked, 
but without the government being able to 
extort from him more than a general con- 
fession of his guilt. Before the close of Au- 
gust all the leaders of the conspiracy had 
shared Ballard's fortune. The trial of Bal- 
lard, with Babington and five other con- 
spirators, took place on 13 and 14 Sept., 
and they were all convicted. At the trial 
Babington charged Ballard with having 
brought him into his perilous situation, and 
Ballard acknowledged the justice of the re- 
buke. Ballard was executed on 20 Sept. 
The full penalty of the law, which involved 
the disembowelling of the criminal before 
life was extinct, was carried out with all its 
cruelty. Ballard, who was the first of the 
conspirators to be executed, is reported to 
have borne his Bufferings with remarkable 
fortitude. 

[MSS. Mary Queen of Scots, xix. 67, 68 (Con- 
fession of Tyrrell) ; cf. also Morris's Troubles of 
our Catholic Forefathers, second series ; Teulet's 
Relations de la France et de 1'Espagne avec 
1'Eco'sse ; Labanoff's Lettres de Marie Stuart ; 
Murdin's State Papers; Howell's State Trials; 
Foley's Records of the English Province of the 
Society of Jesus ; Fronde's Hist, of England, xii. 
126-36, 155, 170-4; see also under ANTHONY 
BABINGTON.] C. F. K. 

BALLARD, JOHN ARCHIBALD 

(1829-1880), general, distinguished for his 
services at the defence of Silistriaand in Omar 
Pasha's campaign in Mingrelia, was an officer 
of the Bombay engineers, which corps he joined 
in 1850. After having been employed in India 



Ballard 



86 



Ballard 



for four years in the ordinary duties of a sub- 
altern of engineers, Lieutenant Ballard was 
ordered to Europe on medical certificate in 
the spring of 1854. Attracted by intelli- 
gence of the events then going on in the 
Danubian provinces, he turned aside to Con- 
stantinople, and, proceeding to Omar Pasha's 
camp at Shumla, was invested by that general 
with the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the 
Turkish army, and deputed to Silistria as a 
member of the council of war in that fortress, 
which was then besieged by the Russians. 
Previous to Ballard's arrival, on 13 June, 
two other British officers, Captain Butler of 
the Ceylon rifles and Lieutenant Nasmyth of 
the Bombay artillery, had been aiding the 
garrison in the defence of the place : but 
Butler had received a wound which proved 
fatal shortly afterwards, and Nasmyth was 
called away to Omar Pasha's camp a few 
days after Ballard's arrival. During the re- 
mainder of the siege, which was raised by 
the Russians on 23 June, Ballard was the 
only British officer in the fortress, and it was 
mainly owing to his exertions, and the in- 
fluence which he exercised over the garrison, 
that the defence was successfully maintained. 
Kinglake, in his brief sketch of the siege, 
refers to Ballard's services in these terms : 
' Lieutenant Ballard of the Indian army, 
coming thither of his own free will, had 
thrown himself into the besieged town, and 
whenever the enemy stirred there was always 
at least one English lad in the Arab Tabia, 
directing the counsels of the garrison, repress- 
ing the thought of surrender, and keeping 
the men in good heart.' 

At the subsequent attack and capture of 
the Russian position at Giurgevo, Ballard 
commanded the skirmishers, and kept back 
the enemy until the Turks could entrench 
themselves. He received the thanks of her 
majesty's government for his services at Si- 
listria, and from the Turkish government a 
gold medal and a sword of honour. 

After serving with the Turkish troops at 
Eupatoria and in the expedition to Kertch, 
Ballard commanded a brigade in Omar Pasha's 
Transcaucasian campaign, undertaken for 
the relief of Kars. The chief event in this 
campaign was the battle of the Ingour river, 

1 1 T-% TIT I 1 ' "I ' T f* 



shoulder.' He was also remarkable for his 
watchful care over the comfort and wellbeing 
of his men. 

Returning to India in 1856, still a subal- 
tern of engineers, but in virtue of his rank 
and services in the Turkish army decorated 
with the order of companion of the Bath r 
and also with that of the Medjidie, Ballard 
was appointed to proceed with Captain (now 
Sir Henry) Green on a mission to Herat ;. 
but the mission having been abandoned, he 
served as assistant-quartermaster-general in 
the Persian campaign, and afterwards in the 
same capacity in the Indian mutiny with the 
Rajput ana field force, taking part in the 
pursuit and rout of Tantia Topee's forces. 
This w T as his last military service. He was 
subsequently mint-master at Bombay ; the 
extraordinary demand for Indian cotton in 
consequence of the civil war in America 
made the office an onerous one, but he dis- 
charged it with marked ability and success. 
He retired from the army and from the public 
service in 1879, having then attained the 
rank of lieutenant-general. His promotion 
after his return to India in 1856 had been 
singularly rapid, advancing in a single year 
(1858) from the rank of lieutenant to that of 
lieutenant-colonel. He received the honorary 
degree of LL.D. from the university of Edin- 
burgh in 1868. He died suddenly in Greece, 
when visiting the Pass of Thermopylae, on 
1 April 1880. 

[Hart's Army List ; Eecords of War Office 
and India Office ; King-lake's History of the War- 
in the Crimea, vol. i. ; Journal of the Koyal 
Engineers; Household Words, 27 Dec. 1856.] 

A. J. A. 

BALLARD, SAMUEL JAMES (1764 P-r 
1829), vice-admiral, was the son of Samuel 
Ballard, a subordinate officer in the navy, 
who had retired without promotion after 
the peace of 1763 and had engaged in busi- 
ness at Portsmouth. Young Ballard en- 
tered the navy in December 1776, under the 
patronage of the Hon. Leveson-Gower, the 
captain of the Valiant, which ship formed 
part of the grand fleet under the command of 
Admiral Keppel during the summer of 1778. 
In October 1779 the youth was transferred 



at which Ballard and his brigade were for | to the Shrewsbury, Captain Mark Robinson, 



several hours hotly engaged with the Rus- 
sians, the former conspicuous, as he had 
been at Silistria and at Giurg'evo, for his cool- 
ness under fire. It was related of him by 
an eyewitness of this battle that when he 



and in her was present when Sir George 
Rodney annihilated the Spanish fleet off 
Cape St. Vincent, 16 Jan. 1780. In the fol- 
lowing July the Shrewsbury rejoined Rod- 
ney's flag in the West Indies, was present 



saw a man firing wildly or unsteadily he ; off Martinique on 29 April 1781, and led 
would, in the gentlest way, say to him : ' My i the van in the action off" the Chesapeake on 
friend, don't be in a hurry. You will fire j 5 Sept. 1781. On this fatal day the brunt 
better with a rest : take aim over my of the fight fell on the Shrewsbury, which. 



Ballard 



Ballenden 



had fourteen killed and fifty-two wounded, 
including Captain Robinson, who lost a leg. 
The ship afterwards returned to the West 
Indies with Sir Samuel Hood, and was with 
him in the operations at St. Kitts in January 
1782, after which she had to be sent to 
Jamaica for repairs. On 10 Feb. 1783, 
whilst still at Jamaica, Ballard was made a 
lieutenant, by Admiral Rowley, and was 
actively employed in different ships during 
the ten years of peace. When war again 
broke out he was a lieutenant of the Queen, 
which carried Rear-admiral Gardiner's flag 
through the last days of May and 1 June 
1794. This great victory won for Ballard 
his commander's rank (5 July), and on 
1 Aug. 1795 he was further advanced to the 
rank of post-captain. Early in 1796 he was 
appointed to the Pearl frigate, and during 
the next two years was continuously and 
happily employed in convoying the trade for 
the Baltic or for Newfoundland and Quebec. 
In March 1798 he accompanied Commodore 
Cornwallis to the coast of Africa and to 
Barbadoes, from which station he returned 
in June of the following year. In October 
he carried out General Fox to Minorca, and 
remained attached to the Mediterranean fleet 
for the next two years. The Pearl was paid 
off on 14 March 1802, after a commission of 
upwards of six years, during which time she 
had taken, destroyed, or recaptured about 
eighty vessels, privateers and merchantmen. 
Captain Ballard was now kept with no more 
active command than a district of sea fen- 
cibles for more than seven years ; it was not 
till October 1809 that he was appointed to 
the Sceptre, of 74 guns, and sailed shortly 
afterwards for the West Indies. Here 
he flew a commodore's broad pennant, and on 
18 Dec. 1809 commanded the squadron which 
captured the two heavily armed French 
frigates Loire and Seine, and destroyed the 
protecting batteries at Anse-la-Barque of 
Guadeloupe. At the reduction of Guade- 
loupe in January and February 1810 he es- 
corted one division of the army, and com- 
manded the naval brigade, which, however, 
was not engaged. Commodore Ballard re- 
turned to England with the Sceptre in the 
following September, and was for the next 
two years attached to the fleet in the Chan- 
nel and Bay of Biscay, but without being 
engaged in any active operations. His ser- 
vice at sea closed with the paying off of the 
Sceptre in January 1813, although in course 
of seniority he attained the rank of rear- 
admiral, 4 June 1814, and of vice-admiral, 
27 May 1825. He died at Bath, where he 
had for several years resided, on 11 Oct. 
1829. He was twice married, and had by 



: the first wife several children, of whom only 
I three survived him. 

[Marshall's Roy. Nav. Biog. ii. (vol. i. part ii.), 
j 876 ; Gent. Mag. xcix. ii. 639.] J. K. L. 

BALLARD, VOLANT VASHOX 

! (1774P-1832), rear-admiral, a nephew of 
Admiral James Vashon, served as a mid- 
shipman with Vancouver in his voyage to 
s the north-west coast of America. Shortly 
j after his return to England he was made a 
j lieutenant, 6 June 1795 ; and in 1798, whilst 
! commanding the Hobart sloop, on the East 
India station, was posted into the Carysfort 
' frigate. He subsequently commanded the 
' Jason frigate, the De Ruyter, of 68 guns, 
| and the Beschermer, of 50 guns, but without 
any opportunity of special distinction. In 
1807, whilst commanding the Blonde, a 
32-gun frigate, he cruised with great success 
against the enemy's privateers, capturing 
seven of them within a few months ; and 
in 1809-10, still in the Blonde, served under 
the command of his namesake, Commodore 
Ballard of the Sceptre, at the capture of 
the French frigates in Anse-la-Barque, and 
the reduction of Guadeloupe [see BALLARD, 
SAMUEL JAMES], for which he was honourably 
mentioned by both the naval and military 
commanders-in-chief. He obtained his flag- 
rank in May 1825, and died at Bath 12 Oct. 
1832. 



[Gent. Mag. cii. ii. 646.] 



J. K. L. 



BALLENDEN or BALLANTYNE, 
WILLIAM (1616-1661), prefect-apostolic 
of the catholic mission in Scotland, was a 
native of Douglas, Lanarkshire, of which 
parish his father was the minister. His 
paternal uncle was a lord of session, with 
the title of Lord Newhall. He studied in 
the university of Edinburgh, and afterwards 
travelled on the continent. At Paris he 
was converted to the catholic religion. He 
entered the Scotch college at Rome in 1641, 
and, having received the order of priesthood, 
left it in 1646, and then stayed in the Scotch 
j college at Paris, preparing himself for the 
1 mission, till 1649, when he returned to his 
I native country. At this period the secular 
clergy of Scotland were in a state of utter 
disorganisation, and dissensions had arisen 
between them and the members of the re- 
ligious orders, particularly the Jesuits. Bal- 
lenden, perceiving the disastrous results of 
this want of union, despatched the Rev. Wil- 
liam Leslie to Rome to solicit the appoint- 
ment of a bishop for Scotland. This request 
was not granted by the holy see, but in 1653, 
by a decree of propaganda, the Scotch secular 
clergy were freed from the jurisdiction of the 



Ballingall 



88 



Ballow 



English prelates and Jesuit superiorship, and 
were incorporated into a missionary body 
under the superintendence of Ballenden, who 
was nominated the first prefect-apostolic of 
the mission. Besides effecting many other 
conversions, he received the Marquis of 
Huntly into the church. In 1656 Ballenden 
visited France, and on his return, landing at 
Rye in Sussex, he was arrested by Crom- 
well's orders and conveyed to London, where 
he remained in confinement for nearly two 
years. He was then banished, and withdrew 
to Paris in great poverty. In 1660 he re- 
turned to Scotland, and he spent the brief 
remainder of his life in the house of the 
Marchioness of Huntly at Elgin, where he 
died 2 Sept, 1661. Out of the writings of 
Suffren he composed a treatise ' On Prepa- 
ration for Death,' which was much esteemed 
in its day, and of which a second edition was 
published at Douay in 1716. 

[Gordon's Account of the Roman Catholic 
Mission in Scotland, introd. v-xi, 519-521; 
Elackhal's Breiffe Narration of the Services done 
to three Noble Ladyes, pref. xxvii ; Catholic 
Directory (1884), 60.] T. C. 

BALLINGALL, SIE GEORGE, M.D. 

(1780-1855), regius professor of military 
surgery at Edinburgh, was son of the 
Rev. Robert Ballingall, minister of Forglen, 
Banffshire, where he was born 2 May 1780. 
He studied at St. Andrew's, and in 1803 
proceeded to the university of Edinburgh, 
where he was assistant to Dr. Barclay, lecturer 
on anatomy. He was appointed assistant- 
surgeon of the 2nd battalion 1st Royals in 
1806, with which he served some years in 
India; in November 1815 he became surgeon 
of the 33rd foot, and retired on half-pay in!818. 
In 1823 he was chosen as lecturer on mili- 
tary surgery at the university of Edinburgh, 
which then, and for some years afterwards, 
was the only place in the three kingdoms 
where special instruction was given in a de- 
partment of surgical science, the importance 
of which had too plainly been demonstrated 
during the long war just ended. In 1825 
Ballingall succeeded to the chair of military 
surgery, the duties of which he discharged 
with untiring zeal for thirty years. He was 
knighted on the occasion of the accession of 
King William IV. Sir George, who was a 
fellow of the Royal Societies of London and 
Edinburgh, and corresponding member of 
the French Institute, was author of various 
professional works, the most important being: 
1. ' Observations on the Diseases of European 
Troops in India.' 2. ' Observations on the 
Site and Construction of Hospitals.' 3. ' Out- 
lines of Military Surgery.' The last, which 



is still regarded as an instructive work, went 
through five editions, the fifth appearing at 
the time of the Russian war, shortly before 
the author's death, which occurred at Blair- 
gowrie on 4 Dec. 1855. 

[Army Lists; (lent. Mag. 1856; Edinburgh 
Med. Jour. Jan. 1856 ; BallingalTs Works.] 

H. M. C. 
BALLIOL. [See BALIOL.] 

BALLOW or BELLEWE, HENRY 

(1707-1782), was a lawyer, and held a post 
in the exchequer which exempted him from 
the necessity of practice. He is said to have 
obtained it through the influence of the 
Townshends, in whose family he was some 
time a tutor. He was a friend of Akenside, 
the poet, who was at one time intimate with 
Charles Townshend. Johnson says that he 
learned what law he knew chiefly from 'a 
Mr. Ballow, a very able man.' He died in 
London on 26 July 1782 (Gent. Mag.}, aged 
75. Malone, who calls him Thomas Ballow, 
attributes to him a treatise upon equity, 
published in 1742. A copy in the British 
Museum, dated 1750, and assigned in the 
catalogue to Henry Ballow, belonged to 
Francis Hargrave. A note in Hargrave's 
handwriting states that it was ascribed to 
Mr. Bellewe, and first published in 1737. 
Hargrave adds that Mr. Bellewe was a man 
of learning and devoted to classical litera- 
ture, and that his manuscript law collections 
were in the possession of Lord Camden (lord 
chancellor), who was his executor and lite- 
rary legatee. Fonblanque, however, in his 
edition of the treatise on equity (1794), 
thinks that the book could not have been 
written by a man of less than ten years' 
standing, and that Ballow, who could have 
been only thirty years of age at the time of 
its publication, would have openly claimed 
it if it had been his. Fonblanque calls him 
Henry Ballow. A Henry Ballow, possibly 
father of this Ballow, was deputy chamber- 
lain in the exchequer in 1703. 

Hawkins gives the following anecdote : 
1 There was a man of the name of Ballow 
who used to pass his evenings at Tom's 
Coffee House in Devereux Court, then the 
resort of some of the most eminent men for 
learning. Ballow was a man of deep and 
extensive learning, but of vulgar manners, 
and, being of a splenetic temper, envied 
Akenside for the eloquence he displayed in 
his conversation. Moreover, he hated him 
for his republican principles. One evening 
at the coffee house a dispute between these 
two persons rose so high, that for some ex- 
pression uttered by Ballow, Akenside thought 
himself obliged to demand an apology, which 



Balmer 



8 9 



Balmford 



not being able to obtain, he sent his adver- 
sary a challenge in writing. Ballow, a little 
deformed man, well known as a saunterer in 
the park, about Westminster, and in the 
streets between Charing Cross and the houses 
of parliament, though remarkable for a sword 
of an unusual length, which he constantly 
wore when he went abroad, had no inclina- 
tion for fighting, and declined an answer. 
The demand for satisfaction was followed by 
several attempts on the part of Akenside to 
see Ballow at his lodgings, but he kept close 
till, by the interposition of friends, the differ- 
ence could be adjusted. By his conduct in 
this business Akenside acquired but little 
reputation for courage, for the accommoda- 
tion was not brought about by any conces- 
sions of his adversary, but by a resolution 
from which neither of them would depart, 
for one would not fight in the morning, nor 
the other in the afternoon.' 

[Fonblanque's Treatise of Equity, preface to 
2nd vol. ; Boswell's Life of Johnson ; Hawkins's 
Life of Johnson ; Calendar of Treasury Papers, 
1702-7.] P. B. A. 

BALMER, GEORGE (d. 1846), painter, 
was the son of a house-painter, and des- 
tined to follow his father's trade. But that 
he soon abandoned, and, coming under the 
influence of Ewbank, made his first endeavours 
in painting. His earliest works being ex- 
hibited at Newcastle attracted attention, and 
he followed up his success with a large pic- 
ture, ' A View of the Port of Tyne.' In 1831 
lie exhibited at Newcastle some water-colour 
paintings, of which one, ' The Juicy Tree bit,' 
was thought the best in the rooms. In con- 
junction with J. W. Carrnichael he painted 
4 Collingwood at the Battle of Trafalgar.' 
This work is now in the Trinity House of 
Newcastle. In 1832 or 1833 he made a tour 
on the continent, travelling by way of Hol- 
land to the Rhine and Switzerland, and re- 
turning by way of Paris to England. Many 
pictures resulted from this excursion ; a large 
* View of Biiigen ' and one of ' Haarlem Mere ' 
being amongst the best. Balmer made much 
and good use of his foreign sketches, but his 
was a properly English genius. He ' was 
never so much in his element as when paint- 
ing a stranded ship, an old lighthouse, or the 
rippling of waves on a shingly coast.' In 
1836, in the employ of Messrs. Finden, Bal- 
iner began a publication called ' The Ports 
and Harbours of England.' It began well, 
but ended ill. He retired from London in 
1842, and gave up painting. He died near 
Ravensworth, in Drirham, 10 April 1840. 
Pictures of shipping, of street architecture, 
and of rural scenery came alike from his hand. 



His prints show great versatility. His repu- 
tation in his day was considerable. 

[Ottley's Supplement to Bryan, 1866; Coopers 

! Biog. Diet. ; Redgrave's Diet of Artists of Eng. 

> School.] E. R. 

BALMER, ROBERT (1787-1844), mi- 
i nister of the United Secession church, was 
! born at Ormiston Mains, in the parish of 
Eckford, Roxburghshire, 22 Nov. 1787, and, 
evincing considerable abilities and a disposi- 
tion towards the Christian ministry, entered 
the university of Edinburgh in 1802, and in 
1806 the Theological Hall at Selkirk, under 
Dr. Lawson, professor of divinity in the body 
of seceders called the Associate Synod. In 
1 1812 he received license as a preacher from 
the Edinburgh presbytery of the Secession 
; church, and in 1814 was ordained minister 
' in Berwick-on-Tweed, where he remained till 
his death. In 1834 he was appointed by the 
Associate Synod professor of pastoral theology 
i in the Secession church, and this office he ex- 
changed later for the professorship of syste- 
matic theology. In 1840 he received the 
degree of D.D. from the university of Glas- 
gow. Balmer was a man of high influence 
in the denomination to which he belonged. 
When certain discussions arose among his 
brethren on some Calvinistic doctrines, he 
supported the less stringent views. At a 
meeting held in Edinburgh in 1843, to 
commemorate the bicentenary of the West- 
minster Assembly, he delivered a remarkable 
speech in favour of Christian union, which, 
in an especial manner, attracted the atten- 
tion of Dr. Chalmers and others, and led to 
i important measures being taken by John 
! Henderson of Park for promoting that cause. 
i Balmer did not publish much during his life, 
but after his death two volumes of ' Lectures 
and Discourses' were published in 1845. He 
I died 1 July 1844. 

[Balmer's Academical Lectures and Pulpit 
i Discourses, with a memoir of his life by Kev. 
' Dr. Henderson, of Galashi els, 1845; Anderson's 
Scottish Nation.] W. G-. B. 

BALMERINO, LORDS. [See ELPHIN- 

STONE.] 

BALMFORD, JAMES (b. 1556), divine, 
published in 1593-4 a ' Short and Plaine 
\ Dialogue concerning the unlawfulness of 
' playing at cards/ London, 12mo. The tract, 
! which consists of eight leaves, is dedicated 
to the mayor, aldermen, and burgesses of 
Newcastle-on-Tyne, his patrons (Life of An- 
drew Barnes (Surtees Society), 296, 297, 
299) ; the dedication is dated 1 Jan. 1593-4. 
It is stated in Hazlitt's ' Handbook ' that the 
1 Dialogue ' appeared also in broadside form. 
In 1623 Balmford reprinted this ' Dialogue,' 



Balmford 



Balmyle 



and added some animadversions on Thomas 
Gataker's treatise ' Of the Nature and Use 
of Lots.' In the * Address to the Christian 
Reader, being 1 one of those men who (ac- 
cording to St. Paul's prophecy) love plea- 
sures more than God,' which is dated 1-4 Sept. 
1620, the author speaks of himself as 'a 
man of 64 yeares compleate.' Gataker lost 
no time in replying, and in the same year 
published ' A Just Defence of certaine Pas- 
sages in a former Treatise concerning the 
Nature and Use of Lots against such ex- 
ceptions and oppositions as have been made 
thereunto by Mr. J. B./ 4to, a voluminous 
book of some two hundred and fifty pages, 
in which the writer states his opponent's 
objections in full, and answers them point 
by point. In 1607 Balmford published 
1 Carpenter's Chippes, or Simple Tokens of 
unfeined good will to the Christian friends 
of J. B., the poor Carpenter's sonne.' The 
book, which is dedicated to the Countess of 
Cumberland, contains three discourses : 

(1) 'The Authoritie of the Lord's Day;' 

(2) ' State of the Church of Rome ; (3) ' Ex- 
ecution of Priests. Balmford is also the 
author of ' A Shorte Catechisme summarily 
comprizing the principal points of the Chris- 
tian faith,' London, 1607, 8vo, and of 'A 
Short Dialogue concerning the Plagues In- 
fection,' 1603, 8 vo, dedicated by Balmford to 
his parishioners at St. Olave's, Southwark. 

[Watt's Bibl. Brit. ; British Museum Cata- 
logue; Hazli tt's Handbook; Hazlitt's Collection 
and Notes, second series.] A. H. B. 

BALMFORD, SAMUEL (d. 1659?), 
puritan divine, is the author of two sermons 
published in 1659, after his death, <Ha- 
bakkuk's Prayer applyed to the Churches 
present occasions, on Hab. iii. 2 ; and 
Christ's Counsel to the Church of Phila- 
delphia, on Ilev. iii. 11, preached before the 
Provincial Assembly of London. By that 
late reverend and faithful minister of Jesus 
Christ, Mr. Samuel Balmford, pastor of Al- 
bons, Wood Street,' 8vo. From Thomas 
Parsons's address to the reader, it appears 
that the two sermons were intended as a 
first instalment of a collected edition of 
Balmford's writings ; but nothing more was 
published. Parsons speaks of the author's 
piety and ability in terms of very high 
praise. We are told that he ' was a person 
of eminent orthodoxy of word and life, by 
both which as a burning and shining light 
he was an exact and powerful teacher ; the 
observant eye of impartial conversers with 
him finding the transcript of his sermons 
in his life, his actions being living walking 
sermons. . . . For his labours in the mini- 



stry he was one would not do the work 
of the Lord negligently nor offer unto God 
what cost him nothing or a corrupt thing, 
whenas indeed he (if any) had a male in 
the flock, and was a workman that needed 
not be ashamed.' Edmund Calarnv adds a 
note in corroboration of the editor's testi- 
mony. 

[Hab.ikkuk's Prayer applyed to the Churches 
present occasions, &c., Lond. 1659, 8vo.] 

A. H. B. 

BALMYLE or BALMULE, NICHO- 
LAS DE (d. 1320?), chancellor of Scotland 
and bishop of Dunblane, was brought up as a 
clerk in the monastery of Arbroath. By 1296 
he had been appointed parson of Calder, for in 
the September of this year his name appears 
in that capacity among a list of Scotchmen 
to whom Edward I restored their estates on 
their swearing fidelity to him (Rot. Scot. 
i. 25). He is said to have been made chan- 
cellor of Scotland in 1301, and somewhere 
about that year is found in the St. Andrews 
register confirming a donation of the arch- 
bishop of that see to the church of Dervisyn. 
But even before this Balmyle seems to have 
been acting a very prominent part in an inte- 
resting Scotch ecclesiastical quarrel. In 1297 
William Lamberton had been elected arch- 
bishop of St. Andrews by the canons regular 
of that foundation. It so happened, however, 
that the Culdees had long claimed the right 
of electing to this see, and as they now op- 
posed the appointment of Lamberton, both 
parties appealed to Boniface VIII at Rome, 
and he gave a final decision in favour of Lam- 
berton and the canons. So the once famous 
name of Culdee vanishes from history. For- 
dun, however, tells us that while the bishopric 
was vacant, its jurisdiction remained entirely 
j in the hands of the chapter, and that this body 
appointed Nicholas de Balmyle, one of its 
officers, to execute all its functions, a duty 
which, the same chronicler adds, was dis- 
charged by him with the utmost vigour 
throughout the diocese. Balmyle is said 
i to have been removed from the chancellor- 
I ship in 1307, and it is certain that about 
this time he was appointed bishop of Dun- 
! blaiie. For in 1309 we find his name, in com- 
I pany with those of many other prelates, pre- 
1 fixed to a document declaring Robert Bruce 
to be the rightful king of Scotland (Act. ParL 
Scot. i. 100). Here he is described simply as 
bishop of Dunblane. His successor in the 
great office of state was Bernard, like Ni- 
cholas, a member of Arbroath Abbey, and 
for seventeen years the faithful councillor of 
Robert Bruce, till he, too, retired from po- 
litical life to a bishopric. In the seventh year 



Balnaves 



Balnaves 



of Robert Brace's reign the names of both the 
late and present chancellor are found attached 
to one of the deeds of the chartulary of Scone ; 
and this seems to be the last document in 
whichNicholas's name occurs before his death. 
He is said to have died in 1319 or 1320 ; but 
he must have been already dead for some time 
by 25 June of the latter year, for Rymer has 
preserved a letter of this date, written by 
Edward II to the pope, begging John XXII to 
appoint Richard de Pontefract, a 1 )ominican, 
to the see of Dunblane, and alluding to many 
previous letters on the same subject. In this 
suit, however, the king of England was un- 
successful, for Nicholas's successor appears to 
have been a certain Maurice. 

[Keith's Catalogue of Fcotch Bishops ; Cra\v- 
f Lird's Lives of the Officers of the Crown ; For- 
dun's Scotichron. eel. Hearne, iii. 603 ; Rymer, 
iii.839; Liber Eccl. Scon. 96; Anderson's Inde- 
pendency, App. xiv, and authorities cited above.] 

T. A. A. 

BALNAVES, HENRY (d. 1579), Scot- 
tish reformer, is usually described as of ' Hal- 
hill,' after a small estate belonging to him in 
Fifeshire. He was born in Kirkcaldy during 
the reign of James V of Scotland (1513- 
1542) ; but the exact date is unknown. He 
proceeded in very early youth to the uni- 
versity of St. Andrews, and afterwards, it is 
said, to Cologne. While abroad he accepted 
the principles of the Reformation, and be- 
came acquainted with the German and Swiss 
reformers. On his return to Scotland he 
studied law, and was for some time a pro- 
curator at St. Andrews. On 31 July 1538 
James V appointed him a lord of session. 
On 10 Aug. 1539 he obtained by royal charter 
the estate of Halhill, near Collessie, Fife. 
The charter ran in favour of himself and 
'Christane Scheves, his wife.' Appointed 
secretary of state by the Earl of Arraii the re- 
gent, he promoted the act of parliament intro- 
duced by Lord Maxwell, which permitted the 
reading of holy scripture in the ' vulgar toung.' 
In 1542 he was depute-keeper of the privy seal. 
In 1543 he was elected by parliament one of 
the Scottish ambassadors sent to Henry VIII 
to discuss the proposed marriage of the infant 
Queen Mary (of Scots) and Edward, prince 
of Wales. The treaties of peace and of mar- 
riage were arranged on 1 July 1543 (SADLER'S 
State Papers, i. 90). But all was overturned 
by the reacceptance of popery by Arraii and 
his reconciliation with Cardinal Beaton. 
Balnaves was removed from all his offices, 
partly because of his protestantism, and 
partly from having favoured the English al- 
liance. In November of 1543, with the 
Earl of Rothes and Lord Gray, he was ap- 



prehended at Dundee by the regent and car- 
dinal, and confined in Blackness Castle, on 
the Forth, until the following May. He was 
released on the arrival of Henry VIII's fleet 
in the Firth of Forth. In 1546, though he 
had in no way mixed himself up with the 
plot that ended in the assassination of Car- 
dinal Beaton, he proceeded to St. Andrews, 
joining Norman Leslie and the others. For 
this he was declared a traitor, and his life and 
lands forfeited. Whilst St. Andrews was be- 
sieged, he was sent as the agent of its defenders 
to England for aid, and in February 1547, a 
month after the death of Henry VIII, he 
obtained from the guardians of Edward VI 
large sums of money and provisions (FKOUDE, 
iv. 273). He himself had a pension bestowed 
011 him of 1257. from Lady day of that year. 
He undertook that Leslie and his compatriots 
should do their utmost to deliver the young- 
queen Mary and the castle of St. Andrews to 
England. But the fortress of St. Andrews 
had to be surrendered to the regent. The 
garrison, including Leslie and Balnaves, was 
sentenced to transportation to the galleys at 
Rouen. 

During his confinement at Rouen Balnaves 
prepared what John Knox has called ' a com- 
fortable treatise of justification.' It was 
revised and prefaced by the great reformer, 
and published with this title-page : ' The 
Confession of Faith; conteining how the 
troubled man should seeke refuge at his God, 
thereto led by faith, &c. Compiled by M. 
Henry Balnaues, of Halhill, and one of the 
Lords of Session and Counsell of Scotland, 
being a prisoner within the old pallace of 
Roane, in the yeare of our Lord 1548. Direct 
to his faithfull brethren, being in like trouble 
or more, and to all true professours and 
fauorers of the syncere worde of God. Edin. 
1584 ' (8vo). The manuscript, though ' ready 
for the press,' was not discovered until after 
Knox's death ; hence the delay in publication. 

In 1556 the ' forfeiture ' which Balnaves 
had incurred was removed. He thereupon 
returned to Scotland, and in 1559, ' the year, r 
says Pitscottie, ' of the uprore about religion/ 
he took a prominent part in behalf of the re- 
formers. In August the protestant party se- 
cretly delegated him to solicit the aid of Sir 
Ralph Sadler, Elizabeth's envoy atBerwick- 
on-Tweed. He obtained from him the promise 
of 2,0007. sterling. On 11 Feb. 1563 he was 
reinstated as a lord of session, and in Decem- 
ber of the same year he was nominated one 
of the commissioners for revising the ' Book 
of Discipline.' 

On the trial of Bothwell for Darnley's 
murder in 1567, he was appointed one of 
the four assessors to the Earl of Argyle, the 



Balnea 



Balsham 



E 



lord justice-general. In 1568 he and George 
Buchanan accompanied the regent Murray 
when he went to York to take part in the in- 
quiry of English and Scottish commissioners 
into the alleged guilt of Queen Mary of Scots. 
In recompense of his many services the re- 
gent bestowed upon him the lands of Lethain 
in Fife. He retired from the bench previous 
to October 1574, and died, according to Dr. 
Mackenzie, in 1579. Calderwood and Sadler, 
following Melville and Knox, eulogise Bal- 
naves as one of the mainstays of the Scottish 
reformation. Knox describes him as ' a very 
learned and pious man,' and Melville as ' a 
godly, learned, wise, and long experienced 
counsellor.' Dr. Irving enrolled him among 
the minor minstrels of Scotland, on the 
strength of a short ballad signed ' Balnaves,' 
which appeared in Allan Ramsay's 'Ever- 

freen,' entitled 'Advise to a headstrong 
'aith.' It commences 

gallandis all, I cry and call. 

[McCrie's Life of John Knox, and of Melville; 

Diplomata Kegia, vii. 176; Eymer's Fcedera, xv. 

133; Calderwood's History ; Melville's Memoirs, 
. 27 ; Anderson's Scottish Nation ; Irving's 
lives of Scottish Poets ; Bannatyne MS. (Hun- 

terian Society).] A. B. G. 

BALNEA, HENRY DE (/. 1400?), an 
English monk of the Carthusian order, was 
author of a work entitled * Speculum Spiritu- 
al ium,' which was preserved at Norwich in 
Tanner's days. Of the exact date at which 
he flourished there seems to be no certain in- 
formation ; but as he quotes from both Rich- 
ard Hampole, who died in 1349, and Walter 
Hylton, who died in 1395, he cannot well 
be assigned to an earlier period than the 
fifteenth century. Tanner infers that Henry 
cle Balnea was an Englishman from the fact 
that he quotes Hylton in that tongue. 

[Tanner's Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica,] 

T. A. A. 

BALSHAM, HUGHDE (d. 1286), bishop 
of Ely and founder of Peterhouse, Cambridge, 
was born in the earlier part of the thirteenth 
century, most probably in the Cambridgeshire 
village from which he may be presumed to 
have taken his name. Matthew Paris, in the 
only passage where he mentions the bishop 
by name, calls him Hugo de Belesale, which 
is doubtless the reason why Fuller introduces 
him as ' Hugo de Balsham (for so he is truly 
written) ' (see Ckronica Majora, v. 589, and 
Worthies, i. 165). ' It was fashionable,' says 
Fuller, for clergymen in that age to assume 
their surnames from the place of their na- 
tivity ;' and 'there is no other village of that 
name throughout the dominions of England.' 
The bishop's supposed birthplace lies about 



ten miles from Cambridge and nine troni 
Newmarket, in a pleasant neighbourhood, 
which justifies to this day Henry of Hunting- 
don's description of it, cited by Fuller, as 
' amoenissima Montana de Balsham.' The 
village is one of those specified in 1401, in 
connection with a long-standing controversy 
between the bishops of Ely and the arch- 
deacons of Ely who called themselves arch- 
deacons of Cambridge, as under the direct 
jurisdiction of the bishops (BEXTHAM'S Ely, 
269). At one time the place was an episco- 
pal manor-seat, and Bishop Simon Montague 
from time to time abode there 



224, note 3). The church, which has been 
recently restored, contains some ancient 
monuments, among them a small brass 
figure on a slab, said to be that of Hugh de 
Balsham. 

At the time of the death of William de 
Kilkenny, which occurred in September 1256 
(STTJBBS), or possibly as late as January 
1257 (Asp. PARKER), and in any case 
within two years after his election to the 
bishopric of Ely, Hugh de Balsham was (ac- 
cording to the usually accepted reading of 
Matthew Paris) sub-prior of the monastery 
of Ely. As such, it was his duty to assist 
the prior, and in his absence to preside over 
the convent ; he was accordingly lodged in 
convenient apartments, and a sufficient in- 
come was assigned to his office (BENTHAM). 
The Ely monks cannot but have been mind- 
ful of the unfairness with which, in the 
earlier part of the century, Hervey, the first 
bishop of the see, had carried out the royal 
mandate for a division of the lands of the 
monastery of Ely between the convent itself 
and the newly created see; and this may 
have helped to determine their independent 
conduct on the death of William, de Kil- 
kenny. The last two bishops had been per- 
sonages of political consequence. It appears 
to have been the intention of Henry III to 
insure the appointment at Ely of a successor 
of the same stamp ; for upon William's death 
the king immediately, by special supplicatory 
letters and official messengers, urged upon 
the monks the election of his chancellor, 
Henry de Wengham, to the vacant see. But 
the monks, or the seven of them whom it 
was usual for the whole conventual body to 
name as electors, acting on the principle (says 
Matthew Paris) that it is unwise to prefer 
the unknown to the known, without delay 
chose their sub-prior, 'a man fitted for the 
office, and of blameless character.' The king, 
angered at this repulse, refused to accept the 
election, and allowed John de Waleran, to 
whom he had committed the custody of the 
temporalities of the see, shamefully to abuse 



Balsham 



93 



Balsham 



his trust. Without the fear either of St. 
Ethelreda or of God before his eyes, he cut 
down the timber, emptied the parks of their 
game and the ponds of their fish, pauperised 
the tenants, and did all the harm in his 
power to the monks and to the diocese at 
large. And while the bishop-elect and the 
convent were hoping to be heard in their 
own exculpation on a day appointed by the 
king for the purpose, Henry made use of the 
occasion to break out into abuse against the 
choice they had made, inveighing against the 
bishop-elect above all on the ground that 
the isle of Ely had from of old been a place 
of refuge for defeated and desperate persons, 
and that it would be unsafe to commit the 
custody of a place which was much the same 
as a citadel to a simple cloistered monk, 
feeble, unwarlike, and without experience in 
statecraft. Accordingly, on the feast of St. 
Gordian and St. Epimachus, 10 May 1257, the 
election of Hugh, though perfectly in order, 
was quashed by the united action of the king 
and Boniface of Savoy, the archbishop. But 
before this (for such seems to have been the 
order of events) the bishop-elect had betaken 
himself to Rome, there to appeal to the pope 
(Alexander IV) ; while the archbishop had 
written to his personal friends at the papal 
Curia, asking them to thwart Hugh's en- 
deavours. The archbishop appears (from a 
statement in BENTHAM'S Ely, 179, note 7) 
to have taken up the untenable position that, 
should the election be annulled, the appoint- 
ment would devolve upon himself; in which 
case he intended to name Adam de Marisco. 
Hugh spent considerable sums in vindication 
of his claims ; and Henry de Wengham, 
who had been no party to the royal appli- 
cation in his favour, entreated the king to 
stay his manoeuvres and ' armed supplica- 
tions ' against the pious monks who had 
chosen a better man than had been recom- 
mended to them. When he heard that the 
famous Franciscan, Adam de Marisco (Marsh), 
had been proposed by the Archbishop of 
Canterbury (Boniface), the modest chancellor 
protested that either of the two others was 
worthier of the see than himself. On the 
other hand, Adam de Marisco (according to 
the same authority, Matthew Paris, whose 
prejudice against the Franciscans is trans- 
parent), although an old and learned man 
and a friar who had renounced all worldly 
greatness and large revenues in assuming the 
religious habit, was reported to have given 
a willing consent to the substitution of him- 
self for Hugh de Balsham. 

Hugh de Balsham succeeded in obtaining 
not only confirmation, but also consecration 
from Tope Alexander IV, 14 Oct. 1257 (Pro- 



\fession Roll of Canterbury), and returned 
home. As for Henry de Wengham, his mo- 
desty was rewarded by his election to the 
bishopric of Winchester two years after- 
! wards (see MATT. PARIS, v. 731). Adam 
de Marisco died within a few months of 
j the termination of the dispute. Had his 
life been prolonged, his election to the con- 
, tested bishopric might have exercised a rno- 
I nientous influence not only upon the history 
I of that see, but also upon that of the univer- 
sity with which it was already closely con- 
nected. He had been the first Franciscan 
! who read lectures at Oxford, and was, ' if not 
| the founder, an eminent instrument in the 
[ foundation, of that school, from which pro- 
! ceeded the most celebrated of the Franciscan 
! schoolmen' (BEEWEE, Monumenta Francis- 
\ cana, preface, Ixxx). A generation had hardly 
passed since (in 1226) the Franciscans had ar- 
rived in England, and already their numbers 
had risen to more than 1,200, and Cambridge- 
j as well as Oxford was among the towns where 
I they multiplied. Readers or lecturers be^ 
J longing to the order were here appointed in 
i regular succession (for a list of those at Cam- 
bridge, seventy-four in number, see Monu- 
j menta Franciscana, 555-7). The success of 
the Franciscans at the English universities 
was doubtless in some measure due to the fact 
that after a violent struggle between tha 
citizens and the university of Paris, ending 
in 1231, the regulars had there achieved a 
complete triumph over the seculars, and that 
j in this triumph the Franciscans had largely 
participated (CEEVIEE, Histoire de V Univer- 
site de Paris, i. 389 seqq.}. Xot only did the 
Franciscans establish themselves at Cam- 
bridge as early as 1224, but in 1249 the Carme- 
lites moved in from Chesterton to Newnham ; 
in 1257 the friars of the Order of Bethlehem 
settled in Trumpington Street ; and in 1258 
the friars of the Sack or of the Penitence of 
Jesus Christ settled in the parish of St. 
Mary (now St. Mary the Great), whence 
they were afterwards moved to the parish 
then called St. Peter's without Trumping- 
ton Gate. So many orders, writes Matthew 
Paris, under the year of Hugh de Balsham's 
election, had already made their appearance 
! in England, that the confusion of orders 
seemed disorderly (Chronica Majora, v. 631). 
i At Cambridge there were added at a rather 
later date (1273) the friars of St. Mary, and 
I two years afterwards the Dominicans. Be- 
sides these establishments older foundations 
existed, of which here need only be men- 
tioned that of the Augustinian Canons who 
had been for a century and a half settled in 
their priory at Barnwell, and that of the 
brethren of St. John's Hospital, who were 



Balsham 



94 



Balsham 



likewise under the rule of St. Augustine, ! 
and whose house had been founded in 1135 
by Henry Frost, a Cambridge burgess (see 
COOPER, Annals of Cambridge, i. 25-55; 
and cf. MULLINGBB, 138-9). Under these ; 
circumstances, there can be little doubt that ; 
the succession to the Ely bishopric of such a j 
personage as the eminent Franciscan, the 
Doctor Illustns, would have been a very im- ' 
portant if not a very welcome event for the | 
university of Cambridge, as well, perhaps, ; 
as for the diocese at large ; and the election ' 
of Hugh de Balsham accordingly possesses, j 
even negatively, a certain significance. (The | 
above account 'of the dispute and its issue is j 
mainlv collected from the Chronica Majora 
of MATT. PARIS, v. 589, 611, 619-20, 635-36, 
662.) 

Of matters concerning Hugh de Balshana's 
episcopal administration nothing very note- 
worthy is handed down to us. He certainly 
took no leading part in the great political 
struggle contemporary with the earlier years 
of his episcopate ; but there is no reason for 
supposing that he sided against the leader of 
the barons, the friend of the great Franciscan 
teachers. On the contrary, we have the 
statement of Archbishop Parker (Acad. Hist. 
Cantab, appended to de Antiq. Britann. 
Ecd.} that Hugh de Balsham was one of 
those bishops who denounced the penalty of 
excommunication against violators of Magna 
Charta and of the forest statutes. It is 
improbable that he sought to effect any im- 
portant improvements in the architecture of 
his beautiful cathedral, in emulation of the 
achievements in this direction of his last pre- 
decessor but one, Bishop Hugh Northwold. 
On the other hand, he seems to have been a 
zealous guardian of the rights of his see, and 
a liberal benefactor both to it and to the 
convent out of which it had grown, and to 
which he had himself so much reason to be 
attached. Soon after his return from Rome, 
in the year 1258, he recovered the right of 
hostelage in the Temple, formerly possessed 
by the bishops of Ely, from the master of 
the Knights Templars who had contested it. 
The power of the Templars was already on 
the wane, and Hugh Bigot, justiciary of 
England, condemned the bishop's opponent 
to heavy damages and costs (BENTHAM, 150). 
The estate in Holborn, on which the bishops 
of Ely afterwards fixed their London resi- 
dence, was not acquired till the time of 
Hugh de Balsham's successor, Bishop John 
de Kirkeby. Bishop Hugh's acquisitions 
were nearer home. He purchased the manor 
of Tyd, which he annexed to the see ; and in 
lieu of two churches (Wisbeach and Foxton) 
which had belonged to the see, and which he 



had appropriated to the convent, and of a 
third (Triplow) which he had assigned to 
his scholars in Cambridge, of whom mention 
will be made immediately, he purchased for 
his bishopric the patronage of three other 
churches (BEXTHAM, 150). He augmented 
the revenues of the almoner of the convent 
by appropriating the rectory of Foxton to 
that officer (ib. 128). And we may be tempted 
to recognise the influence of comfortable 
Benedictine training as well as a considerate 
spirit in his obtaining (if it was he that ob- 
tained) the papal dispensation granted during 
his episcopate to the monks of Ely, which, in 
consideration of their cathedral church being 
situate on an eminence and exposed to cold 
and sharp winds, allowed them to wear caps 
suited to their order during service in church. 
On the other hand, he had a vigilant eye 
ipoii the indispensable accompaniments of 
episcopal authority, issuing in 1268 an order 
to his archdeacon to summon all parish priests 
to repair to the cathedral every Whitsuntide 
and to pay their pentecostals, and to exhort 
their parishioners to do the like, under pain 
of ecclesiastical censures (ib. 150). In 1275 
we find him maintaining the rights of his see 
against the claims of (the dowager) Queen 
Eleanor, who was a benefactress of the uni- 
versity, to present to the mastership of St. 
John's Hospital at Cambridge (COOPER, An- 
nals, i.). 

But it is in the services rendered by this 
prelate to the university of Cambridge itself, 
where he laid the foundations of a system of 
academical life which has, in substance, en- 
dured for six centuries, that his title to fame 
consists. Apparently a man without com- 
manding genius, and belonging to an order 
which was already thought to have degene- 
rated from its greatness and usefulness, the 
Benedictine bishop became the father of the 
collegiate system of Cambridge, and at the 
same time the founder of a college which 
has honourably taken part in the activity and 
achievements of the university. A few 
words are necessary to show how Bishop 
Hugh de Balsham came to accomplish the 
act that has made his name memorable, and 
what precedents or examples were followed 
in the foundation of Peterhouse. 

Various circumstances had contributed to 
hasten the growth of the two English uni- 
versities in the earlier half of the thirteenth 
century, and to draw closer the relations 
between them and the university of Paris 
upon which they were modelled. At Paris 
not fewer than sixteen colleges are mentioned 
as founded in the thirteenth century (indeed 
two are placed as early as the twelfth), 
among which the most famous is that of 



Balsham 



95 



Balsham 



the Sorbonne, established about 1250. At 
the Sorbonne, as elsewhere, poverty was an. 
indispensable condition of membership (MuL- 
LINGER'S History of Cambridge, 127 and 
note 3). At Oxford, where the intellectual 
efforts of Paris had, under the guidance of the 
Franciscans, been equalled and were soon to 
be outstripped, it might seem strange that 
the earliest collegiate foundation that of 
"Walter de Merton (1264) should have ex- 
pressly excluded all members of regular orders , 
(MULLINGER, 164). But the dangers involved , 
in the ascendency of the monks and friars 
must have been already patent to many \ 
sagacious minds ; and it may be worth noting 
that Bishop Walter de Merton had been 
chancellor of the kingdom in the years al- 
most immediately preceding the date of the 
foundation of his college (1261-1262), when 
the king's troubles were at their height 
(MULLINGER, 164, note 1), and that he was 
accordingly by position an adversary of the 
Franciscan interest And in any case the 
monks and friars were already sufficiently 
provided for, so that there was no need for 
including them in a new foundation. In 
1268, when Hugh de Balsham presumably had 
not yet formed the design of establishing a 
college of his own, he appropriated to Merton 
College a moiety of the rectory of Gamlingay 
in Ely diocese and Cambridge county (Kii> 
:NER, Account of Pythayoras's School, 1790, 
87-90). These examples, then for the 
t hostels ' which already existed in the uni- 
versity can hardly be taken into account 
Bishop Hugh had before him when, mani- 
festly after mature reflection, he proceeded, 
by giving a new form to an earlier bene- 
faction of his own, to open a new chapter in 
the history of one of our universities. 

The bishops of Ely, it should be premised, 
had consistently claimed to exercise a juris- 
diction over the university of Cambridge ; all 
the chancellors of the university, from the 
middle of the thirteenth century (1246), when 
the earliest mention of the dignity occurs, 
to the end of the fourteenth, received episco- 
pal confirmation; nor was it till 1433 that 
the university was by papal authority wholly 
exempted from the jurisdiction of the bishops 
(BENTHAM, 159, note 7 ). Indeed, it has been 
argued that the prerogatives of the chancel- 
lor were originally ecclesiastical, and that the 
highly important powers of excommunication 
and absolution were derived by him in the first 
instance from the Bishop of Ely (MuLLix- 
GER, 141). This relation is illustrated by the 
circumstance that in 1275 Bishop Hugh de 
Balsham issued letters requiring all suits 
in the university to be brought before the 
chancellor, and limiting his own authority 



to appeals from the chancellor's decisions 
(MuLLiNGER, 225). The bishop's readiness 
to make a concession to the university de- 
serves to be contrasted witli his tenacity in 
resisting the master of the Temple and the 
queen dowager. Again, in 1276, the bishop 
settled the question of jurisdiction between 
the chancellor of the university and the arch- 
deacon of Ely, who, having the nomination 
of the master of the glomerels (i.e., it would 
seem, the instructor of students in the rudi- 
ments of Latin grammar), sought to make 
this privilege the basis of further interference 
with the chancellor's rights. Bishop Hugh's 
decision on this head was given with great 
clearness, and at the same time he approved 
a statute, published by the university autho- 
rities, subjecting to expulsion or imprison- 
ment all scholars who within thirteen days 
after entering into residence should not havtt 
procured or taken proper steps to procure ' a 
fixed master ' (BENTHAM, 150 ; MULLINGER, 
226 ; and cf. as to the master of the glomerels 
eund. 140, 340. The entire very interesting- 
decree is printed in COOPER, i. 56-58). Rather 
earlier, in 1273, under date 'Shelford, on 
Wednesday next after the Sunday when 
" Letare Jerusalem " is sung,' he brought 
about a composition between the university 
I and the combative rector of St. Bene't, who 
i had denied to the university the customary 
I courtesy of ringing the bell of his church to con- 
vene clerks to extraordinary lectures (COOPER, 
i. 54). Nothing of course could be more 
natural than that the bishops of Ely should 
look with a kindly eye upon the neighbouring 
I seat of learning, as in the thirteenth century 
j it might already be appropriately called. The 
tradition that the priory of canons regular 
at Cambridge, known as St. John's House or 
Hospital, ' upon ' which St. John's College 
was founded several centuries afterwards, 
was instituted by Nigellus, second Bishop of 
El}", rests on no solid grounds (see BAKER, 
13, 14); the origin of this house was, in fact, 
due, as stated above, to the munificence of a 
Cambridge burgess. Eustachius, fifth Bishop 
of Ely, it is true, ' stands in the front of 
the founders and benefactors ' of St. John's 
hospital (ib. 17), and it was he who appro- 
priated to it St. Peter's Church without 
Trumpington Gate. Hugh North wold, eight h 
bishop, is said by at least one authority to 
have placed some secular scholars as students 
there, who devoted themselves to academical 
study rather than to the services of the 
church. (The authority is PARKER, Sceletos 
Cant., 1622, cited by KILNER, and by BENT- 
HAM, 147, note 4.) Bishop Northwold also 
obtained for the hospital the privilege of ex- 
emption from taxation with respect to their 






Balsham 



9 6 



Balsham 



two hostels near St. Peter's church. William 
de Kilkenny, ninth bishop, had little time 
for the concerns of his diocese, though he 
left two hundred marks to the priory at Barn- 
well for the maintenance of two chaplains, , 
students of divinity in the university. 

Among the charters of Peterhouse are 
letters patent of the 9th of Edward I (1280), 
attested at Burgh 24 Dec., which, after a 
preamble, conceived in the medieval spirit, 
about King Solomon, grant to Bishop Hugh 
the royal approval (license) of his intention [ 
to introduce into his hospital of St. John at 
Cambridge, in lieu of the secular brethren 
there, ' studious scholars who shall in every- 
thing live together as students in the uni- 
versity of Cambridge according to the rule 
of the scholars at Oxford who are called of 
Mertoii ' (Documents relating to the Univer- 
sity and Colleges of Cambridge, ii. 1). This 
document at all events fixes the date of the 
royal license, on which there can be little 
doiibt that action was immediately taken. 
It is clear that Hugh de Balsham's scholars \ 
were placed in St. John's Hospital in substi- j 
tution for the secular brethren already re- 
siding there. Very possibly the designation 
of the Ely scholars as ; scholars of the bishops 
of Ely ' may imply an acknowledgment of 
the anticipation by Bishop North wold of 
Bishop Hugh de Balsham's intention to pro- 
vide for secular students. For not more than 
four years afterwards, in 1284, it was found 
that a separation of the two elements would 
better meet the purpose which the bishop had 
at heart. By an instrument dated Dodding- 
ton, 31 March 1284, which w r as confirmed by 
a charter of King Edward I, dated 28 May 
1284, Bishop Hugh de Balsham separated his 
scholars from the brethren of the hospital. 
Dissensions had from various causes and on 
several occasions arisen between the brethren 
and the scholars, and finding a further con- 
tinuance of their common life * difficult if not 
intolerable,' they had on both sides proffered 
a humble supplication that the localities occu- j 
pied as well as the possessions held by them j 
in common might be divided between them, j 
The bishop accordingly assigned to his scho- j 
lars the two hostels (hogpieid) adjoining the ; 
churchyard of St. Peter without Trumping- ; 
ton Gate, together with that church itself 
and certain revenues thereto belonging, in- 
clusive of the tithes of the two mills belong- 
ing to that church. The brethren were com- 
pensated by certain rents and some houses 
near to their hospital Avhich had formerly 
been assigned to the scholars. By another 
instrument of the same date, and confirmed 
by the same royal charter, he assigned the 
church of Triplow, formerly allotted to his 



scholars and the brethren in common, to his 
scholars alone. (Both instruments are recited 
at length in the charter confirming them ; see 
Documents, ii. 1-4). 

This account agrees with the statement in 
the second of the statutes afterwards given to 
Peterhouse by Simon Montague (seventeenth 
Bishop of Ely, 1337-1345) 9 April 1344, ac- 
cording to which his predecessor, Hugh de 
Balsham, ' desirous for the weal of his soul 
while he dwelt in this vale of tears, and to 
provide wholesomely so far as in him lay 
for poor persons wishing to make themselves 
proficient in the knowledge of letters by se- 
curing to them a proper maintenance, founded 
a house or college for the public good in our 
university of Cambridge, with the consent of 
King Edward and of his beloved sons the 
prior and chapter of our cathedral, all due 
requirements of law being observed ; which 
house he desired to be called the House of 
St. Peter or the Hall (Aula) of the scholars 
of the bishops of Ely at Cambridge ; and he 
endowed it, and made certain ordinances for 
it (in aliquibus ordinavif) so far as he was 
then able, but not as he intended and wished 
to do, as we hear, had not death frustrated 
his intention. In this house he willed that 
there should be one master and as many 
scholars as could be suitably maintained from 
the possessions of the house itself in a law T ful 
manner.' Bishop Simon adds that the capa- 
bilities of the house had since proved barely 
sufficient for the support of fifteen persons, 
viz. a master and fourteen scholars (fellows), 
a number which has only in our own days 
been reduced to that of a master and eleven 
fellows (Documents, ii. 7-8). 

It would be useless to inquire to what pre- 
cise extent the statutes of Simon Montague 
represent the wishes of the founder. There 
can, however, be no reasonable doubt but that 
in general they closely correspond to them, 
more especially as the second of Bishop Si- 
mon's statutes declares his intention of fol- 
lowing the desire of Bishop Hugh to base the 
statutes of Peterhouse upon those of Merton 
(Documents, ii. 8). The Peterhouse statutes 
are actually modelled on the fourth of the 
codes of statutes given by Merton to his col- 
lege, which bears date 1274. Accordingly, 
the formula ' ad instar AulaB de Merton ' con- 
stantly recurs in Simon Montague's statutes, 
e.g. in statutes 16, 22, 28, 30, 39, 40, 57, 58. 
Inasmuch as according to statute 43 a fellow 
who has entered into a monastic order is after 
a year of grace to vacate his fellowship, Hugh 
de Balsham may fairly be assumed to have, 
in the same spirit as that in which his suc- 
cessor legislated for his college, designed that 
it should provide assistance for students, with- 



Balsham 



97 



Balsham 



out, on the one hand, obliging them to be- 
come monks, or, on the other, intending any- 
thing hostile against monasticism. The en- 
dowment of the college was not given, as the 
same statute affirms, ' nisi pro actualiter stu- 
dentibus et proficere volentibus.' It must be 
allowed that the true principle of collegiate 
endowments could not be more concisely 
stated (see MULLIXGER, 233). The directions 
taken by the studies of the college were ne- 
cessarily determined by the educational views 
of the age ; but statute 27 shows it not to 
have been intended that the study of divinity 
should either absorb all the energies of the 
college, or be entered upon until after a pre- 
liminary study of the ' liberal arts.' It may 
be added that statute 27, which allows one 
or two scholars of the college at a time to 
carry on their studies at Oxford, is most in- 
accurately represented by Warton's assertion 
{History of English Poetry, section 9), that 
'Bishop Hugh de Balsham orders in his 
statutes, given about the year 1280, that 
some of his scholars should annually repair 
to Oxford for improvement in the sciences 
that is, to study under the Franciscan readers.' 
Bishop Hugh de Balsham did not long sur- 
vive the foundation of Peterhouse. He died 
at Doddington 15 June 1286, and was in- 
terred on the 24th of the same month in his 
cathedral church, before the high altar, by 
Thomas de Ingoldesthorp, bishop of Roches- 
ter (BENTHAM, 151). His heart was sepa- 
rately buried in the cathedral near the altar 
of St. Martin (see memorandum appended to 
Peterhouse statute of 1480 in Documents, ii. 
45). His benefactions to his foundation had 
been numerous, and are duly recorded in the 
same memorandum, ' to wit, four " baude- 
kins " with birds and beasts, five copes, of 
which one is embroidered in red, a chasuble, 
a tunic and a dalmatic, three albs, two cruets, 
the church of St. Peter without Trumpington 
gates, the two hostels adjoining, mill-tithes ' 
(i.e. of Newnham mills), * several books of 
theology and other sciences, and three hun- 
dred marks towards the building of the col- 
lege.' According to another source of infor- 
mation (see BENTHAM, 151) the books and 
the three hundred marks were left by the 
bishop in his last will ; and with the money 
his scholars purchased a piece of ground on 
the south side of St. Peter's church (now St. 
Mary the Less), where they erected a very 
fine hall. There seems reason to believe that 
the land on part of which the present hall is 
built was bought by the college from the 
Brethren de Sacco and the Brethren of Jesus 
Christ. For the rest, the college biography 
of the founder is extremely meagre, and 
dwells especially on his good works in ap- 

YOL. III. 



propriating rectories to religious and edu- 
cational purposes, but not without a