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BALCANQUEL, WALTER, D.D. an
eminent divine of the seventeenth century, was the son of the Rev. Walter
Balcanquel, who was a minister of Edinburgh for forty-three years, and
died in August, 1616. Dr Walter Balcanquel was born at Edinburgh. It has
been supposed that he was himself a minister of Edinburgh; but probably
the writer who makes this statement only mistakes him for his father, who
bore the same name. He entered a bachelor of divinity at Pembroke Hall,
Oxford, where, September 8th, 1611, he was admitted a fellow. He
appears to have enjoyed the patronage and friendship of King James, and
his first preferment was to be one of the royal chaplains. In 1617, he
became Master of the Savoy in the Strand, London; which office, however,
he soon after resigned in favour of Mark Antony de Dominis, archbishop of
Spalatro, who came to England on account of religion, and became a
candidate for the king’s favour. In 1618, Dr Balcanquel was sent to the
celebrated synod of Dort, as one of the representatives of the church of
Scotland. He has given an account of a considerable part of the
proceedings of this grand religious council, in a series of letters to Sir
Dudley Carleton, which are to be found in "The Golden Remains of the
ever memorable Mr John Hales of Eaton, 4to. 1673." In 1621, the
Archbishop of Spalatro having resigned the mastership of the Savoy, Dr
Balcanquel was re-appointed; and on the 12th of March, 1624, being then
doctor of divinity, he was installed Dean of Rochester. George Heriot, at
his death, February 12th, 1624, ordained Dr Balcanquel to be one of the
three executors of his last will, and to take the principal charge of the
establishment of his hospital at Edinburgh. Probably, the experience which
he had already acquired in the management of the Savoy Hospital might be
the chief cause of his being selected for this important duty. Heriot
appointed Dr Balcanquel, by his will, "to repair, with all the
convenience he can, after my decease, to the town of Edinburgh," in
order to conclude with the magistrates about the business of the hospital;
allowing him, for his pains, in addition to the sum of one hundred merks,
which he enjoyed as an ordinary executor, one hundred pounds sterling,
payable by two equal instalments—the first three months after the
decease of the testator, and the second at the completion of the hospital.
Dr Balcanquel is entitled
to no small commendation for the able manner in which he discharged this
great and onerous trust. The Statutes, which, in terms of the testator’s
will, were drawn up by him, are dated 1627, and do great credit to his
sagacity and practical good sense.
[They conclude with the
following adjuration to the magistrates and clergy of Edinburgh, who were
designed in all time coming to be the managers of the hospital; a piece of
composition, calculated, we should think, by its extraordinary solemnity
and impressiveness, to have all the effect which could be expected, from
connecting the obligations of the trustees with the sanctions of religion:—
"And now, finally, I,
the unworthy servant of God, Walter Balcanquel, the composor of these
Statutes, do onerate and charge the consciences of you, the Lord Provost,
Magistrates, and Ministry, and Council of the city of Edinburgh, and of
all those who shall be your successors, unto the second coming of the Son
of God, and that by the bowels of our Lord Jesus Christ, who one day will
come to judge the quick and the dead, and take a particular account of
every one of you, for this particular stewardship, wherewith you are
trusted; by the zeal and honour of our reformed religion, which by this
pious work of the founder, is illustrated and vindicated from the
calumnies of the adversaries to our holy profession, by that pious respect
which you, his fellow-citizens, ought to carry to the pious memory and
last will of the religious founder, your worthy citizen, George Heriot.
And, lastly, for the clearing of your own consciences and your own
particular accounts in the great day of the Lord, let none of you, who
read these presents, nor your successors, who in after ages shall come to
read them, offer to frustrate the pious Founder of his holy intention,
either by taking, directly or indirectly, from this hospital any thing
which he, in his piety, hath devoted unto it, or by altering it, or
bestowing it upon any other use, though you shall conceive it to be far
more pious or profitable; or to go about to alter any of these Statutes
and Ordinances, after they shall be once delivered up unto you, completely
subscribed and sealed, as you will answer the contrary, at the uttermost
of your perils, in the day of the Lord Jesus: to whom, (being fully
assured of your goodly care and zealous conscience in these particulars)
with his Father, and the Holy Ghost, three Persons, but one undivided
Essence of the Godhead, as for all other their blessings, so in particular
for the great charity of this most pious and religious founder, be
ascribed, as is most due, all praise, honour, and glory, from age to age,
Amen."
It is alleged, by
traditionary report, that the taste of Dr Balcanquel is conspicuous in the
external architecture of Heriot’s Hospital. He is said, in particular,
to have directed that anomalous contrariety of ornaments which is observed
in the windows of the building; a blemish, however, affecting only the
details, and not the general effect of the building.]
Dr Balcanquel’s next
appearance in the public concerns of his native country, was of a less
happy character. In 1638, when Charles I. sent down the Marquis of
Hami1ton to Scotland, to treat with the Covenanters, the Dean of Rochester
accompanied his grace in the capacity of chaplain. What was his external
behaviour on this occasion, we do not know; but it was afterwards surmised
by the Covenanters, that he had been deputed by Archbishop Laud, as a spy,
at once upon the Marquis, who was suspected of moderation, and the people
with whom he was dealing. It is asserted by Sir James Balfour, in
his "Memorialls of State," that Dr Balcanquel also communicated
intelligence of all that happened in Scotland, to Signor
George Con, the Pope’s legate, "as some of his intercepted letters
can beare recorde." Early in the ensuing year, was published an
apologetical narrative of the court-proceedings, under the title of
"His Majesties Large Declaration, concerning the Late Tumults in
Scotland," which, by universal and apparently uncontradicted report,
was ascribed to the pen of Dr Balcanquel. While this work was received by
the friends of the king as a triumphant vindication of his attempts upon
the purity of the Scottish church, it only excited new indignation in the
minds of the outraged people, who soon after appeared in arms at Dunse
law, to defend their religious freedom with the sword. On the 14th of May,
1639, at the very time when the armies were about to meet on the borders,
Dr Balcanquel, apparently in requital of his exertions, was installed Dean
of Durham. He had now rendered himself a marked man to the Scottish
presbyterians, and accordingly his name is frequently alluded to in their
publications as an "incendiary." Under this character he
was denounced by the Scottish estates, July 29, 1641, along with the Earl
of Traquair, Sir John Hay, Clerk Register, Sir Robert Spottiswoode, and
Maxwell, Bishop of Ross, all of whom were regarded as the principal causes
of the war between the king and his people. In the Canterburian’s
Self-Conviction, a pamphlet written in 1641, by the Rev. Robert Baillie,
against Archbishop Laud, he is spoken of in a style of such asperity, as
might have convinced him that, in the event of a complete triumph of the
presbyterian party, he would share in the proceedings which were
now directed against that unhappy prelate. Accordingly, the very next
year, when the king could no longer protect his partizans, Dr Balcanquel
was forced from his mastership of the Savoy, plundered, sequestered, and
obliged to fly from London. Repairing to Oxford, he attached himself to
the precarious fortunes of his sovereign, and for several years
afterwards, had to shift about from place to place, wherever he could find
security for his life. At length, having taken refuge in Chirk Castle,
Denbighshire, he died there in a very cold season, on Christmas day, 1645.
He was buried next day in the parish church of Chirk, where some years
after a splendid monument was erected to his memory by a neighbouring
royalist, Sir Thomas Middleton of Chirk Castle.
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