1686; died at Harrowgate in 1748. He took his degree at St. John's college, Cambridge, and was ordained to the ministry in 1711. His controversial writings, the most important of which are his "Letters to a Deist," procured him the friendship of Dr. Clarke and Dr. Hoadley, the latter of whom appointed him to a prebend in the church of Salisbury.—J. S., G.
BALGUY, Thomas, son of the above, was born in 1716, and graduated at Cambridge. He, too, attracted the notice of Hoadley, by whom he was made prebend of Winchester in 1757, and in 1758 archdeacon of Winchester. He was very assiduous in visiting his clergy, and delivering charges. In 1781 George III. offered him the bishopric of Gloster, which, on account of his years, he declined. He died in 1795.—J. B., O.
BALIOL, Edward, eldest son of John Baliol, shared the fortunes of his luckless father, and was his companion in captivity in the Tower. On his release, he accompanied him to France, and ultimately inherited his extensive estates in that country. Little or nothing is known of his history till after the death of Robert Bruce, when the weakness of Scotland, during the minority of David II., induced Baliol to attempt the recovery of the crown which his father had lost. Making common cause with Thomas Lord Wake and Henry de Beaumont, whose claims to certain Scottish estates had been rejected by the government, Edward Baliol, with the treacherous connivance of the English king, Edward III., brother-in-law of David Bruce, invaded Scotland in July, 1332, at the head of a considerable body of troops. The death of Randolph, the great earl of Moray, and the election as regent, in his room, of the feeble and vacillating earl of Mar, at this critical juncture, greatly facilitated the success of this attempt. Baliol and his associates landed at Kinghorn in Fife, and proceeding northwards, encamped at Forteviot on the Earn. A powerful army, under Mar, lay on the northern bank of that river, near Dupplin, ready to oppose the further progress of the invaders. But through the treachery of a Scottish baron, named Murray of Tullibardine, and the incapacity of the regent, Baliol surprised the Scottish camp at midnight of the 12th of August, and routed them with prodigious slaughter. All opposition to Baliol's claims was, for the time, at an end, and on the 24th of September he was crowned at Scone. On the 23d of November he met the English king at Roxburgh, and resigned into his hands the independence of Scotland, acknowledged him as his liege lord, and surrendered to him the town and castle of Berwick, engaging at the same time to assist him in all his wars. The authority of the usurper, however, was shortlived, for on the 15th of December, while he lay encamped in careless security at Annan, he was surprised during the night by a body of horse, commanded by the young earl of Moray, Sir James Fraser, and Archibald Douglas, the brother of the good Sir James. After a brief resistance, his troops were routed, his brother Henry, and several other nobles slain, and Baliol himself was compelled to flee, almost naked, and with scarcely a single attendant, into England. In March following he returned to Scotland, and established his quarters at Roxburgh. In May, 1333, Baliol joined his forces with those of Edward III., who now openly invaded Scotland, and laid siege to the town of Berwick. The fatal battle of Halidon-Hill, fought by the Scots for the purpose of relieving that important place, in which the regent was mortally wounded, and the greater part of the Scottish nobles either killed or taken prisoners, once more laid Scotland prostrate for a time at the feet of the invaders. In a mock parliament, held at Edinburgh on the 18th of February, 1334, Baliol ratified his former treaty with Edward, and ceded to him the whole of the border counties, together with the province of Lothian, and completed his degrading subserviency by doing homage for the remainder. His power, however, rested on no stable foundation, and in spite of the assistance afforded him by the English king, he gained no permanent footing in Scotland. In November, 1334, he was once more compelled to flee to England. He returned next year under the protection of an English army, and for two or three years exercised a merely nominal sway at Perth; but at length in 1335-6, wearied out with an unavailing struggle to maintain his authority, he relinquished the contest, and resigned all his claims into the hands of Edward III. at Roxburgh, with a view to facilitate the design of that monarch upon the Scottish crown. Baliol was rewarded for his subserviency with a donation of five thousand marks, and an annual pension of £2000. After this base transaction he sank into obscurity, and died childless, at an advanced age, in 1363.—(Fordun, Hemingford, Hailes' Annals, Tytler.)—J. T.
BALIOL, John, king of Scotland, was descended from an ancient Norman family, who took their name from their manor of Baliol in France. The founder of the English branch of the family came over with the Conqueror. His son Guy obtained from William Rufus large possessions in Durham and Northumberland. The fourth in descent from him, John de Baliol of Barnards Castle, was a noble of great wealth and power, and a firm adherent of Henry III. in his wars with the barons. He has obtained a place among the benefactors of literature, by founding in 1263 Baliol college, Oxford, which was afterwards enlarged by his widow, Devorgilla, one of the three daughters and co-heiresses of Alan, lord of Galloway, by Margaret, eldest daughter of David, earl of Huntingdon, brother of Malcolm IV. and William the Lion, kings of Scotland. His son, John Baliol, was the successful competitor with Robert Bruce, earl of Annandale, for the crown of Scotland. On the death of Alexander III. in 1286, the crown having devolved on his granddaughter, Margaret of Norway, a child only three years old, Edward I., the able but unprincipled king of England, formed the project of annexing Scotland to his own dominions, by a marriage between the young queen and his only son, Edward, prince of Wales. This scheme was frustrated, however, by the death of Margaret, who fell sick on her passage from Norway to Scotland, and died at Orkney, September, 1290, in the eighth year of her age. The untimely death of the maiden of Norway immediately involved the kingdom in all the evils of a disputed succession and an intestine war. Thirteen competitors for the crown presented themselves, but the claims of ten of these were obviously inadmissible, and were speedily withdrawn. The three remaining claimants were John de Baliol, grandson of Margaret, the eldest daughter of David, earl of Huntingdon, brother to King William the Lion; Robert de Bruce, son of Isabel, second daughter; and John de Hastings, son of Ada, the third daughter of Earl David, and their pretensions were warmly supported by their respective partisans. These divisions among the Scottish nobles afforded to the ambitious king of England a favourable opportunity for executing his long-cherished designs against the independence of Scotland; and "having assembled his privy council and chief nobility," as an old English historian candidly states, "he told them that he had it in his mind to bring under his dominion the king and the realm of Scotland, in the same manner that he had subdued the kingdom of Wales." It has frequently been asserted that the Scottish parliament requested Edward's advice and mediation in settling the succession to the throne. This, however, was not the case; but some important documents recently brought to light, show that a direct invitation to interfere in the affairs of Scotland was given to him by Robert Bruce and his adherents, in order to conciliate the favour of the English monarch, and to gain their own selfish ends. Pretending to regard this invitation as an expression of the national wish, Edward collected a powerful army to support his designs, and requested the clergy and nobility of Scotland to hold a conference with him at Norham on the 10th of May, 1291. When the conference met, Roger Brabazon, the English justiciary, demanded, as a preliminary condition of his master's interference, "the hearty recognition by the meeting of his title as superior and lord paramount of the kingdom of Scotland." This claim was heard with astonishment and dismay by all the assembly, except those who had basely instigated the demand. With some difficulty Edward was induced to allow the Estates time to consult with their absent members, and another meeting was appointed for the 2nd June, which was held on a green plain called Holywell Haugh, opposite Norham castle. It soon appeared that, through the intrigues and bribes of the English monarch, aided by the mutual jealousies and conflicting interests of the Scottish barons, the imperious demands of Edward were to be conceded, and that the independence of the country was to be basely sacrificed. The competitors for the crown, in the first instance, and then the other barons and prelates, acknowledged the English king as lord paramount of Scotland, and bound themselves to submit to his award. Nine days later, the four regents who had been appointed to govern the kingdom during the interregnum solemnly surrendered their trust into the hands of Edward, and the governors of its castles also gave them up to his disposal, on condition that he should restore them in two months from the date of his award. At the same time Bruce and Baliol, with the regents and many of the principal barons and one bishop, swore
