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BALNAVES, HENRY, of Halbill,
an eminent lay reformer, and also a prose-writer of some eminence, was
born of poor parents in the town of Kirkaldy. After an academical course
at St Andrews, he traveled to the continent, and, hearing of a free school
in Cologne, procured admission to it, and received a liberal education,
together with instruction in protestant principles. Returning to his
native country, he applied himself to the study of law, and acted for some
time as a procurator at St Andrews. In the year 1538, he was appointed by
James V. as senator of the college of Justice, a court only instituted
five years before. Notwithstanding the jealousy of the clergy, who hated
him on account of his religious sentiments, he was employed on important
embassies by James V., and subsequently by the governor Arran, during the
first part of whose regency he acted as secretary of state. Having at
length made an open profession of the Protestant religion, he was, at the
instigation of Arran’s brother, the Abbot of Paisley, dismissed from
that situation. He now appears to have entered into the interests of the
English party against the governor, and accordingly, with the Earl of
Rothes and Lord Gray, was thrown into Blackness Castle
(November 1543), where he probably remained till relieved next year, on
the appearance of the English fleet in the Firth of Forth. There is much
reason to believe that this sincere and pious man was privy to the
conspiracy formed against the life of Cardinal Beaton; an action certainly
not the brightest in the page of Scottish history, but of which it is not
too much to say, that it might have been less defensible if its motive had
not been an irregular kind of patriotism. Balnaves, though he did not
appear among the actual perpetrators of the assassination, soon after
joined them in the castle of St Andrews, which they held out against the
governor. He was consequently declared a traitor and excommunicated. His
principal employment in the service of the conspirators seems to have been
that of an ambassador to the English court. In February 1546-7, he
obtained from Henry VIII. a subsidy of £1180, besides a quantity of
provisions, for his compatriots, and a pension of £125 to himself, which
was to run from the 25th of March. On the 15th of this latter month, he
had become bound along with his friends, to deliver up Queen Mary, and
also the castle of St Andrews, into the hands of the English; and, in May,
he obtained a further sum of £300. While residing in the castle, he was
instrumental, along with Mr John Rough and Sir David Lindsay of the Mount,
in prevailing upon John Knox to preach publicly in St Andrews—the first
regular ministration in the reformed religion in Scotland.
When the defenders of the
castle surrendered in August, Balnaves shared in their fate, along with
Knox, and many other eminent persons. He was conveyed to the castle of
Rouen in France, and there committed to close confinement. Yet he still
found occasional opportunities to communicate with his friend Knox. Having
employed himself, during his solitary hours, in composing a Treatise on
Justification, he conveyed it to the reformer, who was so much pleased
with it, that he divided it into chapters, added some marginal notes and a
concise epitome of its contents, and prefixed a commendatory dedication,
intending that it should be published in Scotland as soon as opportunity
offered. This work fell aside for some years, but, after Knox’s death,
was discovered in the house of Ormiston by Richard Bannatyne, and was
published at Edinburgh, in 1584, under the title of "The Confession
of Faith, containing, how the troubled man should seek refuge at his God,
thereto led by Faith; &c., Compiled by M. Henrie Balnaves of Halhill,
one of the Lords of Session and counsell of Scotland, being as prisoner
within the old pallaice of Roane, in the year of our Lord, 1548. Direct to
his faithful brethren being in like trouble or more, and to all true
professors and favourers of the syncere worde of God." Dr M’Crie
has given some extracts from this work in his Life of John Knox. After his
return from banishment, Balnaves took a bold and conspicuous part in the
contest carried on by the lords of the congregation against the Regent
Mary. He was one of the commissioners, who, in February, 1559-60, settled
the treaty at Berwick, between the former insurgent body and the Queen of
England, in consequence of which the Scottish reformation was finally
established, through aid from a country always heretofore the bitterest
enemy of Scotland. In 1563, he was re-appointed to the bench, and also
nominated as one of the commissioners for revising the Book of Discipline.
He acted some years later, along with Buchanan and others, as counsellors
to the Earl of Murray, in the celebrated inquiry by English and Scottish
commissioners into the alleged guilt of Queen Mary. He died, according to
Mackenzie, in 1579.
"In his Treatise upon
Justification," says the latter authority, "he affirms that the
justification spoken of by St James is different from that spoken of by St
Paul: For the justification by good works, which St James speaks of, only
justifies us before man; but the justification by faith, which St Paul
speaks of, justifies us before God: And that all, yea even the best of our
good works, are but sins before God."
"And," adds
Mackenzie, with true Jacobite sarcasm, "whatever may be in this
doctrine of our author’s, I think we may grant to him that the most of
all his actions which he valued himself upon, and reckoned good works,
were really great and heinous sins before God, for no good
man will justify rebellion and murder."
Without entering into the
controversies involved by this proposition, either as to the death of
Cardinal Beaton, or the accusations against Queen Mary, we may content
ourselves with quoting the opinion entertained of Balnaves by the good and
moderate Melville; he was, according to this writer, "a godly,
learned, wise, and long experimented counsellor." ‘A poem’ by
Balnaves, entitled, "An advice to headstrong Youth," is selected
from Bannatyne’s manuscript into the Evergreen.
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